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THE SPELL OF FLANDERS 



THE SPELL SERIES 

Each volume with one or more colored plates and many illustrations 
from original drawings or special p holographs. Octavo, with dec- 
orative cover, gill top, boxed. 

'Per volume $2.50 net, carriage paid $2.70 

THE SPELL OF ITALY 

Bj^ Caroline cAtwater cTVIason 

THE SPELL OF FRANCE 

By" Caroline cAtwater cTHason 

THE SPELL OF SOUTHERN SHORES 

By Caroline tAtwater cTVIason 

THE SPELL OF ENGLAND 
By" Julia de"W. ^Addison 

THE SPELL OF HOLLAND 

Bi^ Burton E. Stevenson 

THE SPELL OF SWITZERLAND 

By Nathan Haskell Dole 

THE SPELL OF THE ITALIAN LAKES 
By William D. c^VIcCrackan 

THE SPELL OF TYROL 
By AVilliam D. cMcCrackan 

THE SPELL OF JAPAN 

By Isabel ^Anderson 

THE SPELL OF SPAIN 

By Keith Clark 

THE SPELL OF FLANDERS 
By Edward Neville Vose 

THE SPELL OF THE HOLY LAND 

By Archie Bell 

*^ 

THE PAGE COMPANY 
53 BEACON STREET, BOSTON, MASS. 




f " 






Cathedral oj Si. Sauveur, Bruges 

(Sec page Ji7) 




Spell ^ 

FLANDER3 




Jin Outline of Hit History, Legends and Jlri 
of 

SELGIUM'S 
Famous V^Corthem ^Provinces 

Being the ttory of a Twentieth G^Btury Pilgrimage in a Siiteenth 
Century Land just before the Outbreak of the Great War 

Edward Neville Vose 




ILLUSTRATED 







Copyright, 1915, 
By The Page Company 

All rights reserved 



First Impression, April, 1915 



THE COLONIAL PRESS 
C. H. SIMONDS COMPANY, BOSTON, U.S.A. 

APR 17 1915 

©CI.A397629 



To 

ALBERT I., 

King of the Belgians, 

the guiding star of a brave nation 

and 

the hero of the Battle of Flanders 

in the Great War, 

this book is dedicated 



PUBLISHEES' NOTE 

Lord Beaconsfield once said : *' Flanders lias 
been trodden by the feet and watered by 
tbe blood of countless generations of British 
soldiers. ' ' This famous passage — which has 
received a new confirmation to-day — is typical 
of many references among English writers and 
statesmen to Flanders as a general term cover- 
ing all of what is now known as Belgium. 
Among the citizens of that brave little Kingdom, 
however, and among most Continental writers, 
Flanders is recognised as being the name of only 
the northern part of Belgium. Small as that 
country is, it has for centuries been bi-lingual, 
the northern portion speaking Flemish, the 
southern French; and for centuries the history 
of the Flemish provinces was as distinct from 
that of the Walloon province to the southward 
as the early history of California or Texas was 
from that of New England. 

Although eventually united under one Grov- 
ernment with the Walloons and with what is now 
Holland, it was during the long period of their 
semi-independence that the Flemings achieved 



viii Publishers' Note 

many of the artistic and architectural monu- 
ments that have made Flanders for all time one 
of the most interesting regions in the world. 
While this book, therefore, does not attempt 
to describe the whole of Belgium, it does present 
a pen picture of the northern part of the country 
as it existed almost at the moment when the 
devastating scourge of the Great War swept 
across it. 



FOEEWOED 

This book is the record of a vacation tour in 
the beautiful old Flemish towns of Northern 
Belgium beginning in May and ending in July 
of the Summer of 1914. The assassination 
of the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand and his 
wife at Sarajevo took place while our little 
party was viewing the mediaeval houses and 
churches of Ghent and Audenaerde, but in the 
many discussions of that event to which we lis- 
tened there was no whisper of the awful fate 
which the march of events was so soon to bring 
upon one of the most charming, peaceful and 
happy countries in the world. 

Many of the descriptions in the following 
pages were written in or near the towns de- 
scribed, and within a day or so after the visit 
narrated. Then each old Flemish '' monu- 
ment " was in as perfect a state of preserva- 
tion as the reverent pride and care of the 
Belgian populace and the learned and skilful 
restorations of the Belgian government could 
together accomplish. The fact that since these 

ix 



X Foreword 

accounts were written many of these very 
towns have been swept by shot and shell, have 
been taken and retaken by hostile armies, have 
formed the stage upon which some of the direst 
tragedies of the world's greatest and most ter- 
rible war have been enacted, will — it is hoped 
— give them a permanent interest and value. 
As a painting of some, famous city as it ap- 
peared many years or centuries ago is of the 
utmost historical interest, even though by an 
inferior artist, so these halting word pictures 
of towns that have since been wholly or par- 
tially destroyed may help the reader to recall 
the glories that have passed away. 

In accordance with the plan described in the 
first chapter, the tour of Flanders followed a 
decidedly zigzag itinerary, frequently visiting 
some town more than once. The purpose of 
this was to follow, in a fairly chronological se- 
quence, as far as possible, the development of 
Flemish history, architecture and art. The out- 
line of the intensely fascinating history of the 
old Flemish communes that has been thus pre- 
sented may prove of interest to many readers 
who have been thrilled by the superb bravery 
of the little Belgian army in its defence of 
Flanders against overwhelming odds. As 
these glimpses into the past clearly show, the 



Foreword xi 

men of Belgium have engaged in a battle 
against foreign domination from the earliest 
ages. That it was at times a losing struggle 
never for a moment diminished the ardour of 
their resistance, or the depth of their devotion 
to liberty and the right to rule themselves. 
And when we consider how, during these cen- 
turies of conflict, and in defiance of obstacles 
that would have daunted a less strong-hearted 
people, the men of Flanders found the inspi- 
ration, the patience and the skill to erect some 
of the noblest examples of mediasval architec- 
ture, to create a school of painting that ranks 
as one of the most priceless heritages of the 
ages, and to excel in a half a score of other 
lines of artistic endeavour, we surely must all 
agree that here is a people we would not will- 
ingly see perish from the earth. 

If to be neutral is to stand by and silently 
acquiesce in the destruction of Belgium as an 
independent nation, then the author of this 
book is not neutral. In every fibre of his being 
he protests against such a course as a crime 
against liberty, against humanity. Happily, 
from every corner of the United States come 
unmistakable evidences that the American peo- 
ple as a whole are not, at heart, neutral on this 
subject. The embattled farmers who stood on 



xii Foreword 

the bridge at Concord and fired '' the shot 
heard round the world " have thrilled the 
imagination and stimulated the patriotism of 
every American schoolboy, but no less heroic 
is the spectacle of the little Belgian army under 
the personal leadershijo of its noble King stand- 
ing like a rock on the last tiny strip of Belgian 
soil and stopping the onrush of the most power- 
ful fighting organisation in the world. At 
Nietiport and Dixmude and along the blood- 
stained Yser Canal, the men of Belgium fought 
for the same cause of liberty for which our 
forefathers fought at Bunker Hill. Whatever 
our sympathies may be with respect to the 
larger aspects of the great world war — and as 
to these we may most properly remain neutral 
— our national history and traditions, the very 
principles of government to which we owe ' ' all 
that we have and are," cannot but confirm us 
in the profound conviction that no conclusion 
to this war can be just and right, or permanent, 
that does not once more restore the Belgian 
nation and guarantee that it shall remain com- 
pletely and forever free. 

On the other hand, while news of the damage 
done to some famous Flemish church or Hotel 
de Ville causes the author sensations akin to 
those that he would experience on learning of 



Foreword xiii 

the wounding of a friend, this book will contain 
no complaint regarding German destruction of 
these monuments of architecture. At Ypres 
and Malines, where the havoc wrought cannot 
fail to have been fearful, the damage was done 
in the course of battles in which the most pow- 
erful engines of destruction ever invented by 
man were used on both sides. Much as we may 
deplore the results, we cannot blame the indi- 
vidual commanders. At Antwerp, Ghent, Bru- 
ges and many other famous Flemish cities the 
Germans appear to have made every effort to 
avoid wanton destruction and preserve the 
most notable historic edifices. After the war 
is over and we have learned exactly what struc- 
tures have been destroyed, and under what cir- 
cumstances, we can justly place whatever blame 
may attach to such a catastrophe where it be- 
longs' — but not until then. For the present 
we can only hope that the damage may be less 
than has been reported, and that in many in- 
stances it will be possible for the Belgians- — 
so skilful in the work, of restoration — to re- 
construct the sections of famous buildings that 
have been damaged. 

When the war is over many thousands of 
Americans and English will be eager to visit 
the battle-fields of Flanders and see for them- 



xiv Foreword 

selves the scenes of conflicts that will forever 
hold a great place in human history. The au- 
thor ventures to hope that this little book may 
be found serviceable to such tourists as it con- 
tains much infoiTQation not to be found in any 
guide book. If it aids any of them — or any 
of the far larger host of travellers whose jour- 
neys in far-off lands must be made by their 
home firesides — to understand Flanders better 
it will have achieved its purpose. It is one of 
the many ironies of the war that towns like 
Ypres and Malines, which were rarely visited 
by American tourists when they were in their 
perfection, will, no doubt, be visited by thou- 
sands now that the clash of arms has brought 
them at the same moment destruction and im- 
mortal fame. 

Edwakd Neville Vose. 



CONTENTS 



HAPTEB PAGE 

Publishers' Note . . - vii 

Foreword ix 

I. Introducing Flanders and the Four Pil- 
grims 1 

II. ViEux Bruges and Count Baldwin op the 

Iron Arm 15 

III. Bruges in the Days of Charles the Good . 30 

IV. How Bruges Became "the Venice op the 

North" 54 

v. dixmude and furnbs . 78 

VI. NiEUPORT AND THE YSER CaNAL .... 94 

VII. When Ypres Was a Greater City than 

London 116 

VIII. COURTRAI AND THE BATTLE OP THE SpURS . 146 

IX. Ghent in the Days op the Flemish 

Counts 169 

X. The Age When Ghent Was Governed by 

Its Guilds 192 

XI. Philip the Good and the Van Eycks . . 218 

XII. TOURNAI, THE OLDEST CiTY IN BELGIUM . . 242 

XIII. Three Centuries op Tournaisian Art . . 268 

XIV. The Fall op Charles the Bold — Memling 

AT Bruges 285 

XV. Malines in the Time of Margaret op 

Austria 311 

XVI. Ghent Under Charles the Fifth — and 

Since 344 

xy 



XVI 



Contents 



CHAPTER PAGE 

XVII. AUDENAERDE AND MARGARET OF PaRMA . . 367 

XVIII. Old Antwerp — Its History and Legends . 393 
XIX. Three Centuries of Antwerp Printers . 411 
XX. Antwerp from the Time of Rubens Till 

To-day 438 

XXI. Where Modern Flanders Shines — Ostende 

AND "la Plage" 464 

XXII. The Spell of Flanders 480 

Bibliography 485 

Index . ., \ 489 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 

Cathedeal of St. Sauveue, Bruges (in full colour) 

(See page ^7) Frontispiece " 

MAP OF BELGIUM AND THE NETHERLANDS, 

Showing the Old Flemish Principality . facing 1 "- 

Beguinage Bridge, Bruges 35' 

Tomb of Marie of Burgundy, Church of Notre 

Dame, Bruges. 51 

Palais du Franc, Bruges {in full colour) .... 59' 

The Belfry, Bruges 63 "^ 

The Minnewater, Bruges 71' 

Shrimp Fishermen, Coxyde 93" 

Tower of the Templars, Nieuport 99"" 

An Ancient Painting of the Flemish Kermesse 

BY Teniers , . . . 115' 

Cloth Hall, Ypres 119- 

Hotel Merghelynck, Ypres 139 

Church of St. Peter, Ypres 141' 

Statue of Peter de Coninck and John Breidel, 

Bruges , . . 154^^ 

Castle of the Counts, Ghent 170*^ 

Ruins of the Abbey of St. Bavon, Ghent . . 184*' 
Post Office, Church of St. Nicholas, Belfry and 

Cathedral, Ghent 195 

Db Dulle Griete, Ghent 208 

Workroom, Petit Beguinage de Notre Dame, Ghent 210 ■ 
" Singing Angels," from " The Adoration of the 

Lamb "— Jean Van Eyck 236''' 

" George Van der Paele, Canon of St. Donatian, 

WORSHIPPING the Madonna " — Jean Van Eyck 

(in full colour) 239'" 

xvii 



xviii List of Illustrations 

PAGE 

General View of Tournai and the Five-towered 

Cathedral 256'^ 

The Belfry, Tournai 262" 

A Triptych of the Seven Sacraments by Rogier 

Van der Weyden 272" 

Shrine op St. Ursula, Hospital of St. Jean, Bruges 296' 
An Illumination by Gheerhardt David of Bruges, 

1498; St. Barbara (in full colour) 300 

"The Last Supper" — Thierry Bouts . . .• . 307 

QuAi Vert, Bruges 310 

Cathedral of St. Rombaut, Malines .... 312 
Tower of the Cathedral of St. Rombaut, from 

the Ruelle sans Fin 318' 

In het Paradijs and Mai son des Diables; two fif- 
teenth century houses, Malines 333 • 

Portrait of Jean Arnolfini and his Wife by Jean 

Van Eyck 340^- 

Maison de la Keure, Hotel de Ville, Ghent . . 347 "' 

Portrait of the Duke of Alva by A. Moro . . . 352 
" The Adoration of the Shepherds " — Hugo Van 

DER Goes 362 

Old Guild Houses, Quai aux Herbes, Ghent . . 365' 

Hotel de Ville, Audenaerde 370' 

Wooden Doorway, carved by Van der Schelden, 

Hotel de Ville, Audenaerde 375*''^ 

Church of Ste. Walburge, Altdenaerde . . . 383 » 

A Flemish Tapestry of the Fifteenth Century . 386 " 

The Vielle Boucherie, Antwerp 399'^ 

" The Banker and His Wife "— Matsys . . . 403*^ 

' ' Winter " — Peter Breughel 405 *' 

" Dragging the Statue ofthe Duke of Alva through 

the Streets OF Antwerp " — C. Verlat . . . 418'' 

Courtyard of the Plantin Museum, Antwerp . . 428*^ 
Ancient Printing Presses and Composing Cases,. 

Plantin Museum, Antwerp 436 >'' 



List of Illustrations xix 

PAGE 

"The Descent from the Cross" — Rubens. . . 439'-^ 

"Coup de Lance" — Rubens 442' 

" La ViEBGE Au Perroquet"—'Rvbiens .... 445 

Peter Paul Rubens 448 

" As the Old Birds Sing the Young Birds Pipe " — 

Jacob Jordaens 453'^ 

Hotel de Ville, Antwerp 456 

The "Salle des Jeux," in the Kursaal Ostende . 476 " 




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THE 

SPELL OF FLANDERS 




CHAPTER I 

IlS'TKODUCIN'G FLANDEES AND THE FOUR 
PILGEIMS 

'LANDERS ! Wliy, where is Flanders? " 
" There! I told you she'd ask that 
question. You'll hare to start right at 
the beginning with her, and explain everything 
as you go along." 

We were planning our next vacation tour in 
Europe, which we had long before agreed to 
** do " together this year. That meant a 
party of four — the '^ Professor," as I always 
called him, and his charming young wife, my 
wife, and myself. Like the plays in which the 
characters, appear on the stage in the order 
that their names are printed on the programme, 
the arrangement I have just given is signifi- 
cant. The Professor is always first, a born 



The Spell of Flanders 



leader-of-the-way. And I am usually last, car- 
rying the heavy bundles-. 

Not that I am complaining. No doubt I was 
born to do it. Moreover, the Professor and I 
have been chums since boyhood. We worked 
our way through " prep " school and college 
together, came to New York together, and — 
in a modest way — have prospered together. 
At least, we felt prosperous enough to think of 
going to Europe. For some years he has been 
the head of the department of history in an 
important educational institution within the 
boundaries of the greater city, while I have de- 
voted myself to journalism — and am there- 
fore dubbed '' the Editor," whenever he wishes 
to refer to me as a personage instead of a hu- 
man being, which, happily, is not very often. 
Of the two ladies in the proposed party I do 
not need to speak — not because there is noth- 
ing to say, but because they can speak for 
themselves. In fact, one of them has just 
spoken, has asked a question, and it has not yet 
been answered. 

" Flanders, my dear," said the Professor, 
speaking in his most sententious manner — as 
if delivering a lecture in his classroom — * ' is 
the most interesting and the least visited cor- 
ner of Europe. It has more battle-fields and 



Introducing Flanders 



more Gothic churches per square mile than can 
be found anywhere else. In other parts of Eu- 
rope you can see mediasval houses, here and 
there — usually in charge of a smirking care- 
taker, with his little guidebook for sale, and 
hungrily anticipating his little fee. In Flan- 
ders there are whole streets of them, whole 
towns that date from the sixteenth century or 
earlier — but for the costumes of the people, 
you could easily imagine yourself transported 
by some enchantment back to the days of 
Charles the Bold, or even to the time of the 
Crusaders. " 

" Yes," I added, " and there is no region in 
the world where the history of the past seems 
more real, raore instinct with the emotions that 
govern human conduct to-day, than these 
quaint old Flemish towns. You stand in front 
of a marble skyscraper on Fifth Avenue and 
read a bronze tablet that tells you that here the 
Eevolutionary forces under old Colonel Put- 
nam, or whoever it was, delayed the advancing 
British and covered General Washington's re- 
treat. Now, does that tablet help you to re- 
construct your history? No, you are quite 
aware that the fight took place when Fifth 
Avenue was open country, but your imagina- 
tion will not work when you try to make it pic- 



The Spell of Flanders 



ture that scene for you right there on Fifth 
Avenue where the tablet says it happened. 

" Now, it's different in Flanders. You read 
in the history about how the burghers of 
Bruges, when the Duke of Burgundy, Philip 
the Good, tried to overawe the city by placing 
an army of archers in the market-place, 
swarmed out of their houses and down the nar- 
row, crooked streets like so many angry bees. 
There are the same old houses, the identical 
narrow, crooked streets — a bit of an effort 
and you can picture it all — and how the Duke 
and his archers were driven back and back, 
while the burghers swarmed in ever increasing 
numbers, and the great tocsin in the belfry 
shrieked and clanged to tell the valiant weavers 
that their liberties were in danger. 

^* And take that other famous event, when 
they flung the murderers of Count Charles the 
Good — who lived and died five hundred years 
before the other Prince who, like him, was sur- 
named ' ' the Good ' ' — from the tower of the 
very cathedral in which they had murdered 
him. Why, you can climb the tower and 
look off across the same sea of red-roofed 
houses and down upon the same square, paved 
with cruelly jagged stones, as did the con- 
demned men when, one by one, they were led to 



Introducing Flanders 



the edge of the parapet and sent hurtling 
down. ' ' 

" The point is well taken," interrupted the 
Professor, " only that particular church is no 
longer standing — it was destroyed during the 
French Revolution. But really that makes lit- 
tle difference — there are plenty of other tow- 
ers in Bruges that have witnessed stirring 
scenes. And all over Flanders it is the same 
way — nothing is easier than to make your 
history live again, for everywhere you have the 
original setting practically unchanged." 

" It's all very well for you men," observed 
Mrs. Professor, when her husband and I paused 
to get our breath, '^ who admire, or pretend to 
admire, battles and executions and that sort of 
thing, but if there is nothing else to see except 
places with such dreadfully unpleasant asso- 
ciations I, for one, don't want to go there." 

' ' On the contrary, ' ' I hastened to reply, see- 
ing that the Professor was much disturbed at 
this unexpected result of all our eloquence, 
^' Flanders has a lot of things to interest the 
ladies. Think of its famous laces and lace- 
makers — we can still find the latter at work 
in places like Bruges, Malines and Turnhout — 
of its rare old tapestries from Audenaerde and 
Toumai, and the fine linens of Courtrai. Then 



The Spell of Flanders 



there are wood carvings the like of which you 
will travel far to see, and old Flemish furni- 
ture everywhere." 

' ' To say nothing of the pleasure of learning 
a little more about the great Flemish school of 
art in the very hame towns of its most cele- 
brated artists," added the Professor, who was 
much elated to see that the frowns were leav- 
ing the fair face of his better half. 

'' That's much better," she announced. 
'' I've always thought fine hand-made lace the 
most wonderful product of feminine patience 
and skill, and I should certainly love to watch 
them make it." 

" For my part," remarked the fourth mem- 
ber of the party, who had been strangely silent 
during all this discussion, ' ' while I like to learn 
a little about the history of the old towns I 
visit, and see the fine things — whether paint- 
ings, or town-halls, or lace or tapestry — for 
which they are famous, what I like the best is 
to study the people themselves. I mean the 
live ones, not those who are dead and gone that 
our husbands are talking about. I love to sit 
on the sidewalk on pleasant evenings and have 
dinner and black coffee while watching the peo- 
ple of the town go by. It's better than a play. 
And on rainy days there is always some quaint 



Introducing Flanders 



old-fashioned inn or cafe where the whole 
scene looks like a painting by Jordaens or 
Teniers. The beamed ceiling and the pictures 
on the walls are grimy with the s'moke and 
steam of countless dinners, the buxom landlady 
sits in state behind an array of bottles of all 
sizes and colours and labelled at all prices, her 
equally plump daughters wait on the tables, 
the very guests — including ourselves — form 
a part of the picture. Why, it makes me 
want to be back there again, just to think of 
it!" 

'' The Madame is right! " exclaimed the 
Professor heartily — all of our friends call my 
wife '* the Madame " because she speaks 
French as fluently as English. " Our first ob- 
ject on this trip will be pleasure. A little 
knowledge of the history of Flanders, of tapes- 
try and lacemaking, of architecture and art, 
may enhance our enjoyment of what we see, 
because we will thereby understand it better 
and appreciate its interest or beauty more 
keenly. But we are not going over as histor- 
ical savants, or as authorities on art — or pre- 
tend that we know any more about such subjects 
than we really do — " 

' ' Which is just enough to enable us to derive 
sincere pleasure from seeing them, and having 



The Spell of Flanders 



them explained to us, without troubhng our 
heads about this, that or the other element of 
technique," I internipted, completing the Pro- 
fessor's sentence for him. 

'* And the best part of the day will be, just 
as Madame says," added Mrs. Professor gaily, 
'' the dinners on the* sidewalks, where we can 
watch the people as they go about and tell each 
other of what we have seen since morning. 
And, hurray! for the Flemish inns! " 

" Well, as to Flemish inns," observed the 
Madame, ' ' what I said related to eating a din- 
ner in one. When it comes to sleeping in them 
there are other things to think of besides 
beamed ceilings and picturesque interiors. 

'' A few years ago we had an experience at 
Antwerp that taught us the folly of arriving 
at a great continental city late at night without 
having hotel accommodations secured in ad- 
vance. We had started at eight in the morn- 
ing from Hamburg, intending to stop at Ant- 
werp just long enough to transfer our belong- 
ings to a train for Brussels that, according to 
the time-table, would leave fifteen minutes after 
our train arrived. Now, from Hamburg to 
Antwerp is quite a long ride — short as the dis- 
tance looks on the map — and when we finally 
arrived at our destination, half an hour late, 



Introducing Flanders 



it was long after midniglit and our train for 
Brussels had gone. 

' ' We were both tired out, and hastily decided 
that we would put up at Antwerp for the night 
and go on to Brussels in the morning. As we 
emerged from the great Gare ' Centrale we 
found despite the lateness of the hour, about 
a dozen red-capped hotel runners, each of whom 
clamoured for our patronage. They all looked 
very much alike, the names on their caps meant 
nothing to us as we were not familiar with the 
Antwerp hotels, and we selected one at random. 
To our dismay we discovered, when it was too 
late, that, whereas most of them had hotel 
busses in waiting — into which they leaped and 
were driven off — our cicerone was not so pro- 
vided. He attempted to reassure us by saying 

that the Grand Hotel de was close by — a 

fact that produced the opposite effect from that 
intended, as we knew that the immediate vicin- 
ity of a large railroad station is seldom a de- 
sirable neighbourhood. 

'* However, the other porters were now gone 
and, unless we were disposed to sleep in the 
station, there was nothing to do but follow 
along. To our further alarm our guide pres- 
ently turned into a most unprepossessing street 
on which several drinking places were still 



10 The Spell of Flanders 

open, or were only on the point of closing. 
Into one of these he led us. After a short con- 
ference with the proprietress, who was sitting 
behind the bar counting the day's receipts, he 
took a candle and a huge key and led us out into 
the court, then up a flight of stairs placed on the 
outside of the house, and through several nar- 
row passageways. But for the flickering can- 
dle everything was completely dark, and when 
he finally ushered us into an immense room 
with a mediaeval four-post bed in its darkest 
corner we involuntarily looked for the trap- 
door down which the murderous inn-keepers of 
the stories were wont to cast their victims. 

** Lighting a pair of candles on the mantel- 
piece from his, and wishing us a civil ' Bon 
soir,^ our red-capped guide now left us — to 
our great relief. Although we tried to dismiss 
our fears as childish, we both felt more insecure 
and helpless than we cared to admit, even to 
each other. None of our friends knew that we 
were in Antwerp. If we disappeared they 
would hardly think to look for us there — and 
still less on this shabby street, the very name 
of which we did not know. 

" We barricaded the door against a sudden 
surprise, inspected the walls with a candle for 
signs of the secret door (at the head of the 



Introducing Flanders 11 

winding stairway up which the wicked inn- 
keeper so often creeps upon his prey, according 
to the chronicles) and at last, the fatigue of the 
day overcoming our fears, we slept. It was 
broad daylight when we awoke, and the street 
was alive with people — mostly cartmen and 
peasants it seemed. With some difficulty we 
found our way down to the room where we had 
seen the landlady the night before. She 
greeted us warmly, our fears of the night had 
fled — and we sat down and ordered, and en- 
joyed, a most, excellent breakfast. The hotel 
was quite a popular one, we learned, much fre- 
quented by people from near-by towns, and we 
had never been safer in our lives. Yet, just 
the same, we both vowed firmly that ' Never 
Again ' would we take similar chances — and 
we never have." 

'* I have thought of that incident more than 
once while talking over our Flemish tour with 
the Professor," I observed, '' and have decided 
upon this plan. When we find a hotel that suits 
us all, as regards cleanliness, cuisine and safety 
— or rather the sense of security, for I daresay 
we would be safe enough in many that we would 
hardly care to patronise — we will stay over- 
night in whatever town we may chance to be 
visiting. If, on the other hand, we have not 



12 The Spell of Flanders 

had time to find such a place, we'll take a train 
back to Antwerp or Brussels, where there are 
hotels that we know all about. We'll get sec- 
ond-class billets d'ahonnement every two weeks 
anyway, so the rail trip will only cost us our 
time." 

'^ And are Antwerp and Brussels both in 
Flanders? " inquired Mrs. Professor. *' Be- 
tween you, you have given me an idea that I 
should like to visit Flanders, but you have none 
of you answered my question as to where it is." 

' * I think I can answer you, my dear, ' ' replied 
her husband. '' There are, as you probably 
know, two little provinces in the northern part 
of Belgium called East and West Flanders. 
The boundaries of the Flanders of history and 
of art, however, cover a considerable wider area 
than these two provinces. Over in France a 
considerable part of the Department du Nord 
was for centuries subject to the Counts of 
Flanders. On the other side, to the eastward, 
the cities of Antwerp and Malines were for 
many centuries independent of the Counts of 
Flanders, but their people spoke Flemish, their 
houses, churches and town-halls were built in 
the best style of Flemish architecture, and they 
became famous centres of Flemish art and 
learning. To my mind, therefore, they both be- 



Introducing Flanders 13 

long to Flanders. Brussels, however, while its 
Hotel de Ville and Grande Place are splendid 
examples of Flemish architecture, is more 
French than Flemish, and belongs to the Wal- 
loon or French part of Belgium. 

'' Now, as the Editor here has proposed a 
plan which seems to me a good one as regards 
our hotels, I will venture to suggest one as re- 
gards our itinerary. It will make compar- 
atively little difference which towns we visit 
first, and as some are more closely identified 
with the early history of Flanders than the 
others I propose that we visit these older towns 
first. At the time of the Crusades Ypres, for 
example, had two hundred thousand inhabitants 
when the population of London was less than 
thirty-five thousand and Antwerp was an ob- 
scure little town. Nieuport and Fumes were, 
at that time, the chief seaports of Flanders. 
Now they are miles from the sea. Dixmude, 
near by, was another important city of those 
olden days. Now all these places are country 
villages ^^' the dead cities of Flanders,' they 
are called, and scarcely a tourist from America 
ever visits them, although they are fairly fa- 
miliar to our English cousins. 

" If we start our pilgrimage in Flanders with 
Bruges, which was the first capital of the 



14 The Spell of Flanders 

County of Flanders, and with these old towns 
■ — all of which are hard by — we can plan our 
journeys chronologically, so to speak, visiting 
first the monuments that date from the twelfth 
to the fourteenth centuries, then those of the 
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and so on. In 
that way we not only can keep the little history 
we know straight, but we can trace with our 
own eyes the gradual development of Flemish 
architecture and art." 

This plan was unanimously voted to be a 
capital one — in theory, at any rate — and thus 
it was that in our subsequent wanderings about 
Flanders, under the guidance of the indefati- 
gable Professor, we often crossed our trail, and 
now and then visited the same place more than 
once. In practice it did not accomplish quite 
all that was expected of it by its learned orig- 
inator — but what plan ever does, or ever will ? 
That it enhanced the interest of the trip many- 
fold we all agreed; it often sustained our flag- 
ging zeal, and it helped us to know Flanders — 
the Flanders of the past especially — far bet- 
ter than we would have done in any other way. 



CHAPTEE II 

VIEUX BETJGES AND COUNT BALDWIN OF THE 
IKON AKM 

^jf'T is not the purpose of this veracious 
chronicle to recount the doings and say- 
ings, the incidents or lack of incident, on 
the voyage across. Suffice it to say that in due 
season the good ship Lapland turned its prow 
away from the white cliffs of Dover and 
straight toward the low-lying shores of Flan- 
ders. As she crossed the North Sea scores of 
fishing boats with brown sails hovered around 
her, while throngs of seagulls soared overhead, 
or now and then dashed madly into her foaming 
wake to grasp some morsel flung from deck or 
porthole, or fight fiercely with each other for its 
possession. Presently, in the haze ahead, a 
faint outline of land could be distinguished, 
and soon we could see through our glasses the 
heaped up dunes that mark the battle line 
between the North Sea and the fertile Flemish 
polders behind them. Here and there the 
shore was strengthened by rows of pilings 

15 



16 The Spell of Flanders 

to keep the waves of Winter from washing it 
away. As a '' sight," however, it was dreary 
and uninviting enough — not at all like the pic- 
turesque headlands of Merrie England we had 
been looking at only a few hours before. 

Now, for a time, the ship kept its course par- 
allel to the shore, but at a distance of a mile or 
more. Gradually the coast became more in- 
habited, and soon we could see a row of stone 
and brick buildings facing directly on the beach 
which some one said was Blankenberghe. No 
doubt there were other rows of houses behind 
the first, but either they were lower, or in the 
haze our glasses could not distinguish them. 
Then the panorama of the Flemish coast un- 
rolled a little further and we saw the long 
curved breakwater of Zee-Brugge, with its white 
lighthouse. This is an artificial port connected 
with the ancient capital of Flanders by a ship 
canal. Entrance to the canal from the sea is 
effected by a large lock which was faintly vis- 
ible. Another beach city, Heyst, next appeared 
— the ship seeming to stand still while the 
shoreline marched slowly past. Then came a 
smaller place, which from our maps we con- 
cluded must be Knocke. Here the coastline of 
the present Kingdom of Belgium ends, the lit- 
tle Eiver Zwyn — once famous as the channel 



Vieux Bruges and Count Baldwin 17 

up which one hundred and fifty ships a day 
made their way to Bruges in the days of its 
greatness — forming the boundary. 

The Dutch are apparently not interested in 
sea bathing, for there were no more watering 
places. In fact the whole coast seemed to be 
dead and deserted, and we were glad when the 
Lapland began to turn her prow inland. We 
were now in the broad estuary of the Scheldt, 
and soon the tiny city of Flushing appeared. 
It was over on the other side of the ship and 
we all scampered across to take our first " near 
look," as Mrs. Professor expressed it, of the 
land we had come to see — for Flushing be- 
longed for centuries to the great overlords of 
Flanders, the Dukes of Burgundy and their suc- 
cessors. It looked very small and compact 
from the towering deck of the big liner, but also 
very quaint and interesting, and we all agreed 
that as a sample of what we had come so far to 
see it was the reverse of disappointing. 

Soon the propellers of the Lapland began to 
revolve again and the little Dutch city slowly 
slipped out of sight in the fast gathering gloom 
of a coming shower. As night came on the en- 
gines presently came to rest once more and we 
anchored to await daylight and flood tide which, 
the officers said, would come together. At four 



18 The Spell of Flanders 

o'clock the following morning the Professor 
and I were on deck in order to miss as little as 
possible of the voyage up the ' ' greyest of grey 
rivers," as the Scheldt has been called. The 
Lapland had started while we were asleep, and 
we were already in Belgium. This circum- 
stance disappointed the Professor not a little 
as he had set his heart on seeing the remains of 
the Dutch forts at the boundary line that for 
nearly one hundred and fifty years — from the 
Treaty of Munster in 1648 to the French occu- 
pation in 1794 — closed the river to ocean com- 
merce. Meanwhile, grass grew in the streets 
of the all but deserted city of Antwerp. The 
French tore down the hated forts and for nearly 
forty years the ships from oversea went up the 
river unmolested. Then came the Eevolution 
of 1830 and the establishment of the Kingdom 
of Belgium, whereupon the Dutch proceeded to 
impose heavy navigation duties upon all ships 
passing through the lower part of the river. 
While this did not stifle the trade of Antwerp, 
it seriously crippled it, since the duties formed 
a handicap in the keen competition for traffic 
between the Belgian port aiid those of Holland 
and Germany farther to the eastward. It was 
not until 1863 that the Belgian Government was 
able to arrange a treaty whereby all river dues 



Vieux Bruges and Count Baldwin 19 

were abolished in return for the payment of a 
lump sum of 36,000,000 francs — of which only 
one-third was paid by Belgium, as other powers 
were interested in obtaining freedom of navi- 
gation on this important river and gladly con- 
tributed the remainder. The imposing monu- 
ment by Winders on the Place Marnix at Ant- 
werp, which was erected in 1883, commemorates 
this important event, to which the port owes its 
present prosperity. 

As the Lapland slowly steamed up the river 
we could look down from her lofty decks upon 
the broad and intensely cultivated plain, stretch- 
ing as far as eye could penetrate in the misty 
distance. Here and there we could see compact 
little groups of farm buildings, usually ar- 
ranged around a central courtyard and with 
their outer walls weU-nigh windowless, as if the 
peasant proprietors still counted on the pos- 
sibility of a siege such as their ancestors no 
doubt often had to sustain against the wander- 
ing marauders and freebooters who for cen- 
turies infested the country. Along every road 
and canal, and beside nearly every cross-coun- 
try path, we could see long lines of trees set out 
at regular intervals and cutting the landscape 
into sections of varying sizes and shapes. Now 
and then a little hamlet could be seen, with its 



20 The Spell of Flanders 

red-tiled roofs nestling close together and a tiny 
church steeple rising from the centre. Often 
the roofs of the houses nearest to the river were 
below the top of the high dykes which here en- 
close the Scheldt on either side. Close to the 
banks an occasional fort commanded the river 
— outlying links in the great chain of fortifica- 
tions that was thought to be impregnable until 
the huge German siege guns so quickly battered 
it to pieces. 

Presently some one with a keener vision than 
the rest cries that the spire of the Cathedral 
of Antwerp is in sight and we all crowd forward 
and peer eagerly through the mist until at last 
we make out vaguely the shape of that marvel 
of Flemish architecture rising above the flat 
plain. At each turn of the river it draws nearer 
and we can see more clearly its delicate tracery 
of lace-work carved in stone, while one by one 
other spires loom up through the grey dawn. 

The traffic in the river becomes more dense 
as we proceed slowly onward — huge red-bot- 
tomed tramp steamers with th(jir propellers half 
out of the water and churning furiously in a 
smother of foam, clumsy canal boats with Flem- 
ish or German names lying at anchor close to 
the banks, barges with dingy brownish sails 
and all manner of strange cargoes. Then, sud- 



Vieux Bruges and Count Baldwin 21 

denly, we swing around the last turn and the 
entire city lies before us, its houses with their 
high peaks and dormer windows rising tier 
above tier, while at the left we catch glimpses 
through the lock gates of the vast inner docks 
with their hundreds of masts and funnels. 
Curiously enough the view to the right is en- 
tirely different — the green fields and farm- 
steads stretching in this direction from the very 
edge of the river as far as the eye can see. 

But now we are warping up against the Eed 
Star Line pier and all eyes are gazing down 
upon the motley crowd that has assembled thus 
early in the morning — it is not yet seven 
o 'clock — to welcome the new arrivals from 
America. The customs inspection proves to be 
a mere formality, half' of our trunks and bags 
are chalk-marked by the obliging inspector 
without lifting a tray or disturbing any of their 
contents. A commissionaire is waiting to bear 
them away to the cabs and, after generously be- 
stowing five cents on this worthy for his trouble, 
we are off for the Gare Centrale — for the 
Madame has decreed that we must all proceed 
forthwith to the home of a certain Tante (Aunt) 
Eosa, not far from Brussels, where we can get 
our land legs safely on before starting on our 
tour under the guidance of the Professor. 



22 The Spell of Flanders 

Throughout the morning it has rained heav- 
ily at intervals, and as the rapide for Brussels 
steams out of the station the grey clouds are 
pouring down their contents in torrents. This 
circumstance disturhs us not at all, for we have 
agreed to pursue our course regardless of the 
weather and are prepared for anything short of 
a flood or blizzard. And right here it may be 
as well to state that any one who proposes to 
travel in Flanders must make up his or her mind 
to ignore the vagaries of the weather altogether. 
At Brussels the weather records show that it 
rains more or less during three hundred days in 
each year, and while there are many days when 
the showers are brief, and some periods when 
it is clear for several days, it is better to come 
prepared for anything. Somewhere in the di- 
rection of the English Channel there seems to 
exist a vast cloud factory, for day after day 
one sees the huge cloud masses rolling slowly 
eastward or southward across the country. 
Usually they are high overhead, with frequent 
intervals of brilliant sunshine, and the showers 
few and far between. At other times the clouds 
hang low and dark and the rain falls steadily, 
not in furious driving showers such as occur 
frequently during the summer time at New 
York, but with a monotonous continuity that is 



Vieux Bruges and Count Baldwin 23 

the despair of travellers who are equipped only; 
for fair weather. It is no exaggeration to state 
that one may look out of his hotel window upon 
a cloudless sky and find that by the time he 
has descended to the street it is raining. Hap- 
pily the reverse is equally possible, and fre- 
quently we looked out of the window while at 
breakfast at pouring rain and dripping roofs, 
only to find by the time we were ready to go out 
of doors that the shower was over, the sky clear 
and the sidewalks nearly dry. It is this rapid 
alternation of showers and sunshine that makes 
Flanders the land of flowers and vegetables, giv- 
ing the former their brilliant colouring and the 
latter their indescribable succulence and fresh- 
ness. 

Another tip for the would-be traveller in 
Flanders is to come well prepared for cold 
weather even in June, July or August. The 
nights are always cool, and the prevailing winds 
are from the north or the northwest — the 
former cold, the latter wet. Many Americans 
contract serious colds because they come clad 
only for hot weather. Warm underwear, on the 
other hand, is best for the Flemish summer 
climate, with overcoats and wraps for evening 
wear. Eaincoats, it is needless to say, should 
be in every suitcase — even for a day's outingj 



24 The Spell of Flanders 

while a very handy article indeed is a parapluie- 
canne, or umbrella cane, such as can be pur- 
chased in Brussels for ten francs and upwards. 

In less than three-quarters of an hour our 
fleet train was rolling into the Gare du Nord at 
Brussels ; but Madame was in a hurry, so we 
became for the time birds of passage only and 
in another hour were already entrained again 
and speeding toward the steaming dinner that 
she assured us la Tante Eosa had awaiting us. 
Of the reception that we found when we arrived 
at last, and of the dinner which was presently 
spread before us, there is no need to say more 
than that the latter proved to be all that we had 
been led to anticipate. Served in the true Bel- 
gian style — customary alike in Flanders and 
in the "Walloon provinces — it occupied our at- 
tention for the greater part of the afternoon, 
the courses following one another leisurely, with 
intervals between during which the men folk 
strolled about the garden and smoked. Two 
days later we started on the Professor's itin- 
erary, completely refreshed after the fatigue of 
our voyage ; and after a bit of shopping at Brus- 
sels, our pilgrimage into the heart of Flanders 
began. 

It was a little after noon when we reached the 
old city of Bruges, and while we were eating 



Vieux Bruges and Count Baldwin 25 

our luncheon the Professor explained briefly the 
origin of the city and of the County of Flanders. 
In order to understand the kaleidoscopic his- 
tory of Flanders it is necessary to forget en- 
tirely the Europe of to-day. Throughout the 
Middle Ages Europe was sub-divided into 
hundreds of separate sovereignties — duchies, 
counties, principalities large and small, whose 
rulers bore a score of titles. These, as a rule, 
acknowledged allegiance to some higher prince, 
while the most powerful yielded deference only 
to some King or Emperor. But this allegiance 
was usually a very shadowy affair, and the ac- 
tual government rested absolutely in the hands 
of the local Count, or Duke, or whatever else his 
title may have been. The history of Flanders 
is, therefore, in a sense, the history of its 
Counts, for as their power waxed or waned the 
country itself grew powerful or weak. Gradu- 
ally, however, the great cities of Flanders ac- 
quired from the earlier and better Counts rights 
and privileges that made them, in many re- 
spects, sovereign powers, and the most fasci- 
nating and instructive part of the history of 
Flanders is the record of the brave struggle 
made by its burghers to maintain their liber- 
ties in the face of a steadily advancing tide of 
tyranny and oppression. 



26 The Spell of Flanders 

The first Count of Flanders, who won his 
title and his domains during the period of 
storm and stress that followed the breaking 
up of the great empire of Charlemagne, was a 
Flemish chief, called Baldwin of the Iron Arm. 
He chanced one day to see Judith, the beauti- 
ful daughter of Charles the Bald, the son of 
Charlemagne, fell in love with her, and carried 
her off for his bride. Judith had been pre- 
viously married to Ethelwolf, King of Wes- 
sex in England, when he was a very old man; 
and had taught her stepson, who afterward 
became Alfred the Great, much of his learning. 
The old King Charles, her father, for a time 
opposed the marriage with Baldwin, but finally 
it was celebrated with much splendour at Aux- 
erre in 863, and Baldwin was thereupon given 
the title of Count of Flanders. On his return, 
Baldwin built a great fortress on an island 
formed by the intersection of the Eiver Eoya 
with its little tributary, the Boterbeke. This 
was called the Bourg, and soon contained 
within its strong walls the nucleus of the future 
city of Bruges. 

Mrs. Professor interrupted at this point to 
ask if the name Bruges was derived from 
Bourg, to which our learned friend replied that 
it was not, but that most historians ascribed 



Vieux Bruges and Count Baldwin 27 

the name to the bridge (in Flemish, brigge) 
from the island to the mainland; while some 
take it from the purple heather (brugge) which 
grows plentifully hereabout, and in August 
can be seen alongside the railway tracks and in 
great clusters by the country roadsides. 

The first afternoon's programme was to dis- 
cover as much as we could of the old Bourg 
of Baldwin of the Iron Arm. Not much of it 
is left in the Bruges of Albert the First. The 
Eoya still runs where it did in the days of the 
first Counts of Flanders, but only along the 
Dyver, a terrace of middle-class residences, 
can it be seen by the tourist. Since the eight- 
eenth century it has been vaulted over for much 
of its course through the city, and the Boter- 
beke runs through subterranean channels for 
the entire distance from where it enters the 
city limits to its junction with the Eoya at the 
comer of the rue Breidel. It flows close to 
the Cathedral, or possibly beneath it, and di- 
rectly under the Belfry, which is built on piles. 
For part of its course it runs, like a subway, 
under the rue du Vieux Bourg. The only 
building in modern Bruges that dates from the 
first Baldwin's time is the crypt of St. Basil, 
under the Chapel of the Holy Blood. Here, or 
assuredly hard by, the founder of the long line 



28 The Spell of Flanders 

of Flemish Counts, and Ms beautiful and tal- 
ented Countess, no doubt worshipped; and, in 
the main, the little chapel probably looks to- 
day very much as it did a thousand years ago. 
In one corner, apparently outside of the orig- 
inal outer walls of the structure, the con- 
cierge showed us a miniature model of the an- 
cient castle of the first Counts of Flanders as 
archeologists have reconstructed it, with the 
little Chapel of St. Basil adjoining it. On the 
opposite side, and near the entrance, is a 
smaller chapel which some authorities state 
was the one built by old Iron-Arm, the main 
structure dating from the middle of the twelfth 
century. Be this as it may, here is unques- 
tionably the very oldest relic of the ancient 
Bourg and one of the oldest places of worship 
in all Flanders. 

After our inspection of St. Basil we decided 
to devote the rest of the afternoon to tramp- 
ing around the streets of the Vieux Bourg, or, 
in other words, the section of the city within 
the circle of picturesque old quays that mark 
the approximate boundaries of the island-for- 
tress where the first Counts of Flanders laid 
the foundations of their power. To be sure, 
none of the houses now standing date from a 
much earlier period than the fifteenth century. 



Vieux Bruges and Count Baldwin 29 

but all were so quaint and charming that we 
cared little for the archeologists with their 
dates, and felt ourselves transported without 
an effort to the days when might made right 
and the whole world was governed by the sim- 
ple law that '^ he may take who has the power, 
and he may keep who can." We little 
dreamed, as we journeyed about amid these 
peaceful surroundings, that within a single 
month the world was to revert to the rule of 
jnight once more ; that, to quote from Kipling 's 
noble poem, stricken Belgium, and, indeed, all 
civilisation could say: 

" Our world has passed away, 

In wantonness o'erthroAvn. 
There's nothing left to-day 

But steel and fii-e and stone. 

" Once more we hear the word 
That sickened earth of old — 

*No law except the sword, 

Unsheathed and uncontrolled.' " 




CHAPTER in 

BEUGES IN THE DAYS OF CHARLES THE GOOD 

!iO those for whom the past possesses ele- 
(^ ments of romance, of mystery and of 
fascination that our more prosaic and 
orderly modern world lacks, Bruges offers end- 
less opportunities for enjoyment. To be sure, 
the streets are a bit more crowded than they 
were twenty years ago, and one sees more fre- 
quent groups of people, carrying little red- 
backed Baedekers and evidently intent on 
seeing all the '' sights," than formerly. But 
these are evils of which all old travellers com- 
plain, as one compares notes with them at the 
hotel after the day is over. One caretaker 
told us, with evident pride, that thirty thousand 
tourists visited Bruges in 1913. If one di- 
vides this total by three hundred and sixty-five, 
and the result again by the score or more of 
places that every tourist wants to see, it will be 
perceived that the number in any one place at 
the same time is not likely to be excessive. In 
point of fact our little party was almost invari- 

30 



Bruges in Days of Charles the Good 31 

ably alone, save when we encountered a party 
of ^' personally conducted " travellers rushing 
at break-neck speed from place to place. 

If, after seeing all the '* points of interest " 
enumerated by the faithful red-coated guide, 
philosopher and companion above mentioned, 
one should stray down one or another of the 
narrow, crooked streets in the older parts of 
the town he is certain to find bits of mediaeval 
Bruges here and there so well preserved and 
perfect that if the few passers-by only wore 
the picturesque costumes of the olden days the 
illusion would be complete. Take, for ex- 
ample, the rue de I'Ane Aveugle, the Street of 
the Blind Donkey, with its attenuated side- 
walks along which a tight-rope walker could 
hardly advance without stepping off, its road- 
way too narrow for two blind donkeys to pass 
abreast, and its charming archway from the 
Hotel de Ville to the Mais on de Pancien Greffe 
Flamand; or the rue du Poivre, with its tiny 
one-story houses, many of them with one room 
down-stairs and one overhead — the latter 
lighted by the quaintest of gable windows — • 
surely we have stepped backward half a dozen 
centuries, for nothing like this could have- 
continued to exist until the prosaic pres- 
ent ! 



32 The Spell of Flanders 

In fact these queer little one-story houses 
abound in all parts of the city, and the Madame 
was constantly darting across the roadway to 
peer within whenever she saw a door ajar. 
She generally returned highly indignant that 
any one could think of existing in such narrow 
quarters. '' I'd as soon live in a tomb! " she 
exclaimed, nodding in the direction of one lit- 
tle house which consisted of one room and only 
one, being devoid even of the attic room with 
its customary dormer window. Inside sat an 
old lady, gazing tranquilly out of doors and 
doing nothing whatever. Indeed, as the 
Madame pointed out, there was little enough 
to do as far as housework was concerned. In 
the morning everybody in Flanders washes the 
stone floors of their living-rooms, and fre- 
quently the sidewalk and out to the middle of 
the street as well. This done, the housework 
for the day is over, except for preparing the 
meals. We had hoped to see old ladies by the, 
score sitting at the doorways making lace, but 
on only one street — the rue du Eouleau — did 
we catch a glimpse of any, and they went in- 
doors as we approached them. It was only the 
estaminets that we could inspect within. When- 
ever we found what appeared to be an excep- 
tionally old house that bore the legend " Hier 



Bruges in Days of Charles the Good 33 

Verkoopt men drank " the Professor and I 
often used to go in and order a glass of Vieux 
systeme, simply to get a look at the interior. 
If, as sometimes happened, mijnheer and his 
vroue were very accommodating and kind, we 
summoned the ladies — despite the fact that 
the sign without appeared to mean '' for men 
only ' ' — and together we explored the old 
house from garret to cellar. 

More than once, as we journeyed about 
among these delightfully old and quaint sur- 
roundings, the longing to see some one whose 
costume would, in a measure, suggest the pe- 
riod when these structures were built came 
back to us. '' Oh! " exclaimed Mrs. Profes- 
sor, as we sat one afternoon in a particularly 
cosy corner of one of the oldest interiors we 
had yet seen, '^ if two or three knights in ar- 
mour — or in their lovely costumes of velvet, 
silk and old lace — would stalk in and sit down 
at that table over there it would make the pic- 
ture complete." We found, however, one 
spot in Bruges, dating from the twelfth cen- 
tury, in which even the costumes were un- 
changed. This was the Begiiinage, close to 
the Minnewater and the ancient city ramparts 
— a city of the past where, shut off by high 
brick walls from the noise and bustle of the 



34 The Spell of Flanders 

outer world, peaceful figures clad in sombre 
grey and white move noiselessly about as if the 
big figures on the calendar read 1114 instead 
of 1914. 

Except for two institutions of the kind in 
Holland, Belgium is the only country in Eu- 
i;ope in which these BegTiinages have survived 
— all of them in Flanders. No institution of 
the present day recalls so vividly the condi- 
tions that existed at the time when Flanders 
was the name of a wild marsh country peopled 
by yet wilder men. In 877 the Emperor made 
the title of Count of Flanders hereditary — 
the oldest title of the kind in Europe. Bald- 
win II, son of Baldwin of the Iron Arm and 
the beautiful Judith, married Alfrida, the 
daughter of Alfred the Great. The second 
Baldwin was renowned chiefly for his work in 
fortifying the towns of Bruges, Ghent, Ypres 
and Courtrai as a means of protection against 
the robber chiefs who still — despite the ener- 
getic warfare of his father — infested this 
entire region. The necessity for protection 
against robbers, and occasional incursions of 
savage Danes from the North Sea, caused pop- 
ulation to flock speedily into these walled 
towns, and thus laid the foundation for the 
wonderful civic development of the next four 




BEGUINAGE BRIDGE, BRUGES. 



Bruges in Days of Charles the Good 35 

centuries. The son of Baldwin II, Arnulph 
— often called Arnulph the Great — continued 
the policy of strengthening the cities, and also 
established or restored nearly a score of mon- 
asteries and convents for the protection of men 
and women against the many dangers of that 
lawless age. The famous chapter of St. Dona- 
tian's at Bruges was one of these, and while 
the Beguinage dates from a somewhat later 
epoch, in the town's history, it admirably ex- 
emplifies many of the principles that made 
these early religious orders the strongholds, 
not only of piety in a period of semi-barbarism, 
but of learning and civilisation. 

The Beguinage at Bruges is much smaller 
than the famous Grrand Beguinage at Ghent, 
which so many tourists visit, but is far more 
ancient — its arched gateway dating from the 
thirteenth century and its gloomy and barn- 
like chapel from 1605. How old the houses 
are no one seemed to know, but probably many 
of them are older than the chapel. The little 
bridge by which one enters its quiet precincts 
was first built in 1297, of wood, according to 
the records, but its present picturesque stone 
arches date from 1570 — a respectable an- 
tiquity, even for Bruges. We found several of 
the little houses untenanted for some reason, 



36 The Spell of Flanders 

but even the empty ones were spotlessly clean. 
Tlie Beguines live in small communities or 
*' convents," under tlie superintendence of a 
Lady Superior called * ' de Juffer " ; or in 
'' houses " where two or three live together. 
In the convents there are usually about twenty 
inmates. Each has her little cell, but these we 
were not permitted to see. We did, however, 
inspect the kitchen and dining-room of one of 
the convents — and the large sunny workroom, 
in which the Beguines were assembled. Each 
was chatting aloud as she worked, but whether 
in Flemish or Latin we could not tell. On 
every face there rested the same expression of 
absolute peace and quietness, nor did a single 
one betray the slightest interest or curiosity 
at our presence. 

In the early annals of Bruges no stor^'' is 
more dramatic than that of the murder of 
Charles the Good. It is, in fact, the theme of 
the great Flemish novelist Hendrick Con- 
science's most famous book, De Kerels van 
Vlaanderen, and has been told by several con- 
temporary chroniclers. When Charles be- 
came Count of Flanders the feudal system was 
slowly displacing the anarchy that had resulted 
from the breakdown of all centralised govern- 
ment as the Norsemen swept over northern 



Bruges in Days of Charles the Good 37 

Europe. Charles was an ardent believer in 
the new'order, but was opposed in his policy of 
building up a strong feudal state by the Karls, 
a class of free landholders of Saxon descent, 
who stubbornly refused to swear allegiance to 
any feudal over-lord. The greatest of these 
was the house of Erembald. Desiderious 
Hacket, the head of the family, was Chate- 
lain of Bruges, ranking next to the Count him- 
self; while his brother Bertulph was Provost 
of St. Donatian, the principal ecclesiastical 
position in the County, and chancellor of the 
Count. The head of the feudal lords was 
Tancmar, Lord of Straten. Between the 
powerful houses of Erembald and Straten 
there was a deadly feud, which culminated in 
a challenge to mortal combat delivered to Wal- 
ter, a nephew of Tancmar, by Eichard de 
Eaeske, a baron allied by marriage to the 
house of Erembald. 

To the amazement of all Flanders the chal- 
lenge, delivered in the presence of Count 
Charles and all his court, was refused. Wal- 
ter, whom the historians call '' the Winged 
Lie," proclaimed that he would fight only with 
a free man, and that the Lord of Eaeske, by 
wedding a serf, had become a serf himself^. 
This was in accordance with a law recently pro- 



38 The Spell of Flanders 

mulgated by Charles, but the house of Erem- 
bald, perceiving that its very existence was 
threatened by the charge, fiercely repelled the 
accusation and was supported not only by all 
of the Karls, but by most of the feudal nobility 
as well — the latter no doubt fearing lest one 
of their own houses might be attainted in a 
similar manner at any moment. 

The country was plunged into what was vir- 
tually civil war, when Charles was suddenly 
summoned by his feudal over-lord, the King of 
France, to come to his aid at Clermont. On 
his return, assured of the King's powerful sup- 
port, Charles undoubtedly meditated the com- 
plete overthrow of the Erembalds, whom he 
had steadfastly claimed as his vassals since 
*' the Winged Lie " had denounced them as 
serfs. He arrived at Bruges late in the even- 
ing, and early the following day, March 1, 1127, 
repaired to St. Donatian to hear mass. It was 
a foggy morning and the Count went almost un- 
attended. Hardly had he knelt before the 
altar when a party of followers of the attainted 
house of Erembald swarmed into the church 
and he was struck down before he had time to 
rise, much less to defend himself. 

If, in his lifetime, the Count was a dangerous 
foe to the Erembalds, in his death he proved to 



Bruges in Days of Charles the Good 39 

be far more deadly. As liis body lay on the 
stone floor of the great cburch, clad in the 
crimson robe the chroniclers so often allude 
to, and surrounded with flaming torches, the 
heads of the house hastily consulted as to what 
was to be done with it. To inter the body at 
Bruges would be to risk an outbreak of popular 
passion at the murder, and it was decided to 
secretly convey it away. This plan was rudely 
frustrated by a mob of citizens who forcibly 
prevented the removal of the body, which was 
therefore laid to rest with imposing cere- 
monies in the very church where the Count had 
been assassinated. 

Meanwhile the story of the murder spread 
far and wide, and, in a few days, a huge host 
was marching on Bruges from every part of 
Flanders. For a time the burghers stood by 
the Chatelain and the Provost, but when the 
city was entered by stratagem and the Erem- 
balds driven back into the Bourg the mass of 
the citizens went over to the side of the 
avengers. After a short defence the Bourg in 
turn was captured — its defenders failing to 
guard one small gate by which their enemies 
entered unopposed — and the remnant of the 
Erembalds fled into the very church that had 
been defiled by their kinsmen's crime, St. 



40 The Spell of Flanders 

Donatian. Here, for a time, they were left 
in peace while the victors pillaged the rich 
palaces in the ancient Bourg. 

The day before the capture of the Bourg Ber- 
tulpli, the Provost managed to escape and fled 
to a little village near Ypres. Here, after re- 
maining in hiding for some three weeks, he was 
captured. The next morning he was brought 
to Ypres, walking on foot all the way, although 
a horse was offered him. That he was going 
to his death he well knew, and asked for a 
priest to whom he confessed. The old man — 
who had been " a soft, luxurious prelate," 
proud and haughty in his days of power — 
made his last journey like a martyr. As the 
prisoner and his captors neared the gates of 
the city a great throng came forth to meet 
them, beating the Provost with their staves and 
fists and pelting him with the heads of fish. 
Arrived in the market-place he stood amid the 
huge jeering throng, not one of whom looked 
with pity on him, and there, for his greater 
shame, he was fastened naked to a cross like 
a common thief. On his refusing in a stead- 
fast voice to reveal the names of any of those 
implicated in the Count's murder, '' those who 
were assembled in the market-place to sell fish 
tore his flesh with their iron hooks, and beat 



Bruges in Days of Charles the Good 41 

him with rods, and thus they put an end to his 
days. ' ' 

The news of this tragedy was brought to the 
little band still being besieged at St. Donatian 
and caused great grief and terror. Of the 
very considerable army of Erembalds and their 
partisans who had taken refuge in the Bourg 
only thirty now remained, most having been 
killed, while some no doubt had escaped. King 
Louis, with a host of French knights, had 
joined the men of Flanders in the attack and 
it was seen that further resistance was hope- 
less. The only terms were instant surrender 
or instant death, and as they looked across the 
country from the church tower they could see 
no hope of succour and surrendered. After 
keeping them prisoners for a fortnight, Louis 
directed that all save one, who was of some- 
what nobler lineage than the rest, should be 
jEiung from the tower of the now thrice historic 
St. Donatian. This sentence was duly carried 
out. The cruel soldiers told the condemned 
that they were about to receive a proof of the 
King's mercy and they remained ignorant of 
their terrible fate until, one after another, they 
stood on the lofty tower overlooking the city 
for a brief moment and were then dashed down 
headlong to the jagged pavement below. The 



42 The Spell of Flande rs 

bodies were denied Christian burial and thrown 
into a marsh outside of the city, and it is re- 
lated that for many years thereafter " no man 
after nightfall would willingly pass that way." 

The house of Erembald was well-nigh an- 
nihilated during this short, but sanguinary, 
war. The sole survivor of the band captured 
in the church was beheaded by King Louis as 
soon as he crossed the French frontier, while 
most of the great names in the family were 
heard of in Flanders no more — some having 
perished in battle, others in exile. Only one, 
Hacket the Chatelain, returned after the cry 
for vengeance had died down, was placed on 
trial for the murder, proved his innocence, and 
eventually recovered much of his former power 
and wealth. The charge of serfdom was never 
raised again, and his descendants for many 
generations stood high in the rolls of the Flem- 
ish nobility. 

The church of St. Donatian no longer stands, 
having been destroyed during the French Rev- 
olution. In the small museum of antiquities 
in the Halles adjacent to the Belfry we were 
shown some stone railings, carved in imitation 
of rustic woodwork, that the concierge assured 
us had come from the ruins of the famous 
church. From a painting made in 1710 the 



Bruges in Days of Charles the Good 43 

student can obtain a fair idea of the appear- 
ance of the structure, which can hardly be said 
to have been imposing externally. It stood op- 
posite the Hotel de Ville, and the statue of 
Van Eyck in the centre of the little shaded 
square is said to mark the spot where Charles 
the Good fell at the hands of his assassins. 
The stones with which the Cathedral was built 
were carried away, and some of them were used 
to build a chateau a short distance outside of 
the city. According to the peasants in the 
neighbourhood, ill-luck has always followed 
those who lived there. If so, the spirit of the 
murdered Count would seem to have been as 
dangerous in the nineteenth century as it was 
in the twelfth. 

Every morning here at Bruges, and else- 
where throughout our pilgrimage, the Profes- 
sor and I sallied forth between five and six 
o'clock to explore as many of the by-ways and 
quaint out-of-the-way comers as we could be- 
fore breakfast. The sun rises in Belgium long 
before five, in fact it is light as early as three 
in the summer time, but we found very few 
people astir, and those who were up were usu- 
ally engaged in the morning scrubbing of 
floors and sidewalks — a fact that made us keep 
pretty much to the middle of the road on these 



44 The Spell of Flanders 

expeditions. Cleanliness is certainly honoured 
next to godliness in Belgium, for this morning 
ablution of the premises is universal — the big 
department stores at Brussels observing the 
custom as faithfully as the tiniest estaminet in 
the remotest hamlet. Every one, rich and poor, 
performs this rite, and the tourist could safely 
eat his breakfast off the doorstep of any house 
when it is over. Nor is the rest of the interior 
neglected, for every pot and pan that we could 
see within the little houses as we passed their 
doors shone with a lustre that bespoke per- 
petual polishing. On the other hand, the good 
vroue herself, or her maidservant, was not so 
clean, and it is in this respect that the people 
of Holland are superior, for they somehow 
manage to keep themselves as immaculate as 
their little houses. 

It was at Bruges that the Professor had his 
first experience with the Belgian species of bar- 
ber. Instead of the massive reclining chair, 
with which all Americans are familiar, one 
finds in all parts of Belgium, save the big tour- 
ist hotels and resorts, stiff little arm-chairs 
with immovable head rests- that look as if they 
could never serve the purpose for which they 
are intended. In point of fact they do fairly 
weil, once one becomes accustomed to them. 



Bruges in Days of Charles the G-ood 45 

Eazors in Belgium, however, are almost invari- 
ably dull — especially with the lady barbers 
who abound in the smaller villages. Avoid 
these sirens if you value your skin, for they 
certainly will slice otf a bit of it. On Sundays 
and holidays, it appears, their husbands offici- 
ate, but week days the better half does her best 
to accommodate the public — but her best is 
none too good, and the experience is usually a 
painful one for the unwary tourist. 

The shave over, the barber says, " S'il vous 
plait, monsieur," or its equivalent in Flemish, 
motioning meanwhile toward a small wash basin 
that is placed in front of the chair. To the un- 
initiated this is somewhat bewildering, but the 
professor desires that monsieur will kindly wash 
his own face. The ablution performed, he pro- 
ceeds to rub a piece of alum over the face, after 
which he sprays it with perfumed water, then 
dries and powders it much in the manner of the 
American barber. When one becomes accus- 
tomed to this performance — which costs two 
to three cents in the villages and five to ten 
cents in the large towns — he is apt to prefer it 
to the American method. Certainly it is vastly 
superior to the hot towel torture so deservedly 
caricatured some years ago by Weber and 
Fields. In the smaller villages of the indus- 



46 The Spell of Flanders 

trial provinces we found that the first and sec- 
ond class distinction that one encounters every- 
where in Belgium extends even to the barber's 
chair. The rough clad workman is simply- 
shaved — a few fierce scrapes with the razor 
and it is all over — and is left to wipe off the 
remnants of lather as best he can, usually with 
a red bandanna handkerchief. For this the 
charge is only two cents — the alum, the spray- 
ing and the powder being reserved for first- 
class patrons only. 

On our way back to the hotel from these 
early morning promenades the Professor and I 
kept on the look-out for some patisserie where 
brioches or cuches au heurre could be had with 
a pot of coffee. This formed our usual break- 
fast for, it may as well be admitted right now, 
we did not feel that we could afford the ex- 
travagance of a three-franc breakfast at the 
hotel. The ladies were ready to join us by 
eight o'clock — before that hour it would be 
useless to look for a place open for business — 
and we conducted them to the patisserie we had 
discovered. The brioche, it may be remarked, 
is a light spongy preparation — half cake and 
half biscuit — while the cuche au beurre is ap- 
parently made from a kind of light pie-crust, 
rolled thin and built up in several layers with 



Bruges in Days of Charles the Good 47 

butter between. When served fresh and hot 
from the oven the latter is most delicious, but 
when cold it is as tough and soggy as a day-old 
griddle-cake. The usual charge for these deli- 
cacies was five centimes (one cent) each, and as 
three made a very substantial meal, and the 
coffee cost three or five cents per cup, our total 
expenditure for four people was less than two 
francs. If, as often happened — in addition to 
getting everything hot and delicious — we were 
served on little tables out of doors with a view 
of a cathedral or Hotel de Ville thrown in, we 
felt that we were getting a very good bargain 
indeed. 

Of the Bruges of Charles the Good the most 
important existing monument is the great Ca- 
thedral of St. Sauveur, which was rebuilt by 
him after having been partially destroyed by 
fire in 1116, the work being completed in 1127. 
Probably very little of the structure as we see 
it to-day dates from this period, as the edifice 
has been enlarged and restored many times, 
much of it dating from the fourteenth and part 
from the sixteenth century — the era when ar- 
chitecture in Flanders flourished as never be- 
fore or since. The tower was begun in 1116, 
continued in 1358, and its upper portions added 
during the last century, so that nearly eight 



48 The Spell of Flanders 

hundred years elapsed before it was finally 
completed in its present form. Many writers 
speak of this tower as clumsy and unsightly, 
but to me it is one of the most majestic and 
stately structures in Flanders. At any rate, 
there is no other tower like it, and the way in 
which it lifts its castle-like mass of tawny 
brick high above the tiny houses that surround 
it is profoundly impressive. The lower part 
of the tower is Eomanesque, being, no doubt, 
the portion erected under the supervision of 
Charles the Good. The rest is Gothic, if so un- 
ecclesiastical a style can be so denominated. 

The interior of St. Sauveur dates in the main 
from a much later period than Charles the 
Good, and as we visited this interesting edifice 
several times an account of its later construc- 
tions and paintings will be found in a chapter 
devoted more particularly to the art treasures 
of Bruges. It is not the purpose of this book 
to weary the reader with detailed descriptions 
of this and every other ' ' monument ' ' in Flan- 
ders. For those who are interested in archi- 
tectural details there are numerous works writ- 
ten by experts and discussing exhaustively — 
if not exhaustingly — every feature of tech- 
nical importance. Our little party was not 
learned and these random jottings will there- 



Bruges in Days of Charles the G-ood 49 

fore record only such facts as seemed interest- 
ing to the average American visitor. Nor 
would it be possible to attempt a detailed ac- 
count of the pictures and sculptures, either at 
St. Sauveur or elsewhere. Many of the great 
Flemish churches are literally museums of 
early Flemish art and a mere catalogue of their 
contents would fill many pages. For the most 
part the works are of mediocre merit, but 
nearly every church possesses one or more 
masterpieces — which the uninformed visitor 
can generally distinguish by the fact that a 
charge is made to uncover them. At times this 
practice becomes a bit annoying, particularly 
when — in addition to paying the fee — one has 
to hunt around for half an hour to find the sac- 
listan, who may live two or three blocks away; 
but, after all, it is the tourist who is under 
obligation for the privilege of visiting the 
churches when they are closed to the gen- 
eral public, and all the fees in Flanders add 
only a trifle to the expense account of one's 
tour. 

In St. Sauveur on the occasion of our first 
visit we were especially interested in a curious 
painting of the Crucifixion located in the Bap- 
tistry and said to be the earliest picture of the 
famous Bruges school in existence. The sa- 



50 The Spell of Flanders 

vants assign a date prior to 1400 to this work, 
the author of which is unknown. 

The name of Charles the Good is also associ- 
ated with the Church of Notre Dame, part of 
the present structure dating from his reign. 
The bulk of the edifice was erected during the 
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The spire 
was begun in 1440, torn down and rebuilt, be- 
ing finally completed nearly a century later. 
There is a legend that the architect, in despair 
over the fact that it leans considerably to the 
east, threw himself from its summit. At pres- 
ent it is one hundred and twenty-two metres in 
height, which is said to be the greatest eleva- 
tion ever attained by a structure of this kind 
built of brick. It can hardly be described as 
beautiful, the dark red of the top portion being 
out of harmony with the rich tawny grey of the 
lower part, but it forms a splendid feature in 
the sky-line of the city. Perhaps the most 
charming view of it is that obtained from the 
opposite side of the Lac d 'Amour. Another 
excellent point of view is from the Dyver with 
the outhne of the tower reflected in the still 
waters of the Roya. 

The interior of this church is, like the 
tower, built of brick, only the great support- 
ing pillars being of stone. The general effect 



Bruges in Days of Charles the Good 51 

of the interior is greatly marred by a wooden 
rood-loft that separates the nave from the 
choir. In this church there is an interesting 
" Adoration of the Magi " by Daniel Seghers, 
a painter of the later Antwerp school, who be- 
came a Jesuit but continued to practise his art 
and was especially renowned for the flowers 
and butterflies with which he adorned his pic- 
tures. This work, which was finished in 1630, 
is thought by many to be the artist's master- 
piece. Another notable treasure is the statue 
of the Virgin and Child by Michael Angelo, ex- 
ecuted in 1503. 

The most famous of the possessions of Notre 
Dame, however, are the superb tombs of 
Charles the Bold and his daughter Marie of 
Burgundy, to be seen only by paying a small 
fee to enter the chapel in which they are placed. 
That of Marie is the older, and by far the finer 
of the two, and consists of a sarcophagus of 
black marble upon which rests a life-sized re- 
cumbent figure of the famous princess — '' the. 
greatest heiress in Europe " — who died at the 
age of twenty-five as a result of an injury re- 
ceived when hunting in 1482, less than five 
years after her marriage to Maximilian who 
later became Emperor. At the command of 
her son, Philip the Handsome, this masterpiece 



52 The Spell of Flanders 

of stone and bronze was begun by Pierre de 
Beckere in 1495 and completed in 1502. 
Around the altar-tomb are exquisitely carved 
statues of saints and angels, with twining 
plants and scrolls and the heraldic shields of 
all the provinces and not a few of the cities 
within Marie's wide domains. The figure of 
the princess lies above all this with her hands 
folded as if in prayer, a crown upon her head 
and two hounds lying at her feet. The bronze 
has been cunningly carved to represent the 
finest lace and richly gilded until it seems to be 
pure gold. The body of Charles the Bold was 
brought from Nancy in 1550 at the command of 
Charles the Fifth, his grandson, and eight 
years later the funeral monument was begun by 
order of Philip II. It was completed in 1562, 
and is designed in imitation of that of Marie. 
The figure of " the terrible Duke " is shown 
clad in armour, with his helmet at one side and 
a lion crouching at his feet. 

" Here, in this little chapel," said the Pro- 
fessor, '' one can see the beginning and the end 
of the most interesting period in the long his- 
tory of Bruges, the alpha and omega of her 
greatness. At the time- of Charles the Good the 
little Bourg on the Roya was slowly emerging 
from obscurity and beginning to assume the as- 



Bruges in Days of Charles the Good 53 

pect of a great capital. For three hundred and 
fifty years its power and fame grew until ' the 
Venice of the North ' was everywhere recog- 
nised as one of the most beautiful and brilliant 
cities in the world. Then suddenly, almost 
within the span of a single generation, the fickle 
sea abandoned it and it became the quiet inland 
city that it is to-day, living largely upon the 
memories of its splendid past. When the beau- 
tiful Marie was brought home to the Princen- 
hof, dying from her fall at Wynandael, the de- 
cline had already begun, and when the remains 
of her father were placed beside her here in 
Notre Dame the end had already come and the 
city's merchants and prosperity had departed." 



CHAPTER IV 



HOW BRUGES BECAME " THE VENICE OF THE 



NORTH 



)) 




^FTER the murder of Charles the Good 
had been so thoroughly avenged, the 
King of France sought to foist one of 
his own underlings upon the people of Flanders, 
but they would have none of him, and he fell 
fighting before the gates of one of the Flemish 
cities. Dierick of Alsace was the popular hero 
and became Count on the death of this rival. 
The King of France sought once more to inter- 
pose, but the burghers of Bruges retorted 
proudly: '* Be it known to the King and to 
all princes and peoples, and to their posterity 
throughout all time, that the King of France 
hath no part in the election of a Count of 
Flanders. ' ' 

Of all the Counts of Flemish blood Dierick 
proved to be the greatest and the wisest who 
ever ruled over the land. During his long 
reign of forty years (from 1128 to 1168) and 
that of his son, Philip of Alsace, who ruled un- 

54 



''The Venice of the North" 55 

til 1191, the country prospered and grew rich. 
Both princes encouraged commerce, industry 
and the arts, and were liberal in their policy 
toward the cities. It was during this Golden 
Age of Flemish history — the longest period of 
happiness the country ever knew — that mu- 
nicipal charters were granted to the cities of 
Bruges, Ghent, Ypres, Furnes, Gravelines, 
Nieuport, Dunkerque and Damme. 

While the memory of Dierick of Alsace de- 
serves to be fondly cherished by the people of 
Flanders as that of a wise and liberal ruler, his 
most famous exploit was bringing back the 
relic of the Precious Blood from Jerusalem. 
Like most princes of his time, Dierick joined 
in the Crusades, but, unlike many of them, 
he left his government so strong and se- 
cure that no harm came to the country during 
his absence. It was the second Crusade, and 
Dierick departed in 1147, and returned in 1150, 
bringing with him this relic, a portion of the 
most precious possession of the Holy Church of 
Palestine, consisting of a small crystal vial filled 
with what was alleged to be the blood of Christ, 
preserved by Joseph of Aramathea who pre- 
pared the body for burial. Deeming himself 
unworthy to bear so holy a relic, the Count en- 
trusted it to his chaplain, who never parted 



56 The Spell of Flanders 

with it until the returning crusaders delivered 
it to the chaplains of the court who placed it 
in the chapel built by Baldwin of the Iron Arm, 
where it still remains in its original receptacle. 

On the 2nd of May every year from 1303 until 
now — save for a brief interruption during the 
stormy times of the French Eevolution — the 
city of Bruges has celebrated its possession of 
this holy relic by the great Procession of the 
Holy Blood. At first simply a religious cere- 
mony, the procession gradually took on spectac- 
ular features such as the Flemings love, in- 
cluding representations of the Apostles, the 
Nativity, King Herod, and so on. At present 
La Noble Confrerie du Precieux Sang, or Hon- 
ourable Society of the Holy Blood, is a very 
wealthy and aristocratic organisation, even its 
affiliated members — of whom there are several 
thousands, of every nationality — esteeming 
their connection with it a great honour. 

During the French Revolution mobs stripped 
the chapel of everything that could be torn 
down or broken, leaving it such a wreck that 
the municipal authorities were considering tear- 
ing it down, but were happily prevented from 
doing so by Napoleon. The lower chapel was, 
however, used as a jail for drunken and dis- 
orderly persons — and even as a pound for 



*'The Venice of the North" 57 

stray dogs — until 1818. The upper cliapel 
meanwhile was roofless and windowless, a sad 
wreck of so ancient and famous a structure. 
Both have since been restored, the lower — or 
Chapel of St. Basil — being now just as it was 
in 1150, and, in the opinion of many critics, 
'' the most beautiful and perfect specimen of 
Eomanesque architecture in Europe." We 
had already inspected the lower chapel while 
exploring the Vieux Bourg of Baldwin of the 
Iron Arm our first day at Bruges, but had not 
spent much time in the upper one. Here the 
most interesting object was naturally the 
chasse, or casket, containing the holy relic after 
which the chapel is named. This is on one 
side of the little museum of the chapel and is 
of silver-gilt, standing four feet, three inches 
high. It was made in 1617 by a silversmith of 
Bruges and, while not regarded as a master- 
piece of its kind, is very graceful and elegant. 
The chapel itself is richly decorated and has 
s"ome excellent stained glass windows, all of 
this work dating from the middle of the last 
century. 

Adjoining the Chapelle du Saint-Sang is the 
Hotel de Ville. This structure is a very fine 
example of Flemish municipal architecture, 
dating from the last quarter of the fourteenth 



58 The Spell of Flanders 

century. Here the Counts of Flanders for- 
merly took the oath to respect the rights and 
privileges of the city, this formality taking 
place in the last window to the right. Orig- 
inally there were statues of former princes 
on the fagade and six of these were col- 
oured by Jean Van Eyck in 1435. All were 
destroyed during the Eevolution. Part of 
the interior is still used by various govern- 
ment officials, while up-stairs the tourists usu- 
ally visit the ancient Salle Echinivale, or Coun- 
cil Chamber. This was restored in 1895 and 
decorated with a series of twelve mural paint- 
ings representing notable scenes in the history 
of the city. Of these eleven are by Albrecht 
de Vriendt, and the last by his brother, Julian, 
the first artist dying just before his work was 
completed. As these pictures form an inter- 
esting epitome of the history of the city, the 
subjects are given herewith : 

1. — Return of the Brugeois from the Battle of the Gol- 
den Spurs at Courtrai in 1302. 

2. — Foundation of the Order of the Golden Fleece by 
Philip of Burgundy at Bruges in 1430. 

3. — Dieriek of Alsace bringing the Holy Blood to the 
chapel of St. Basil in 1150. 

4. — The interior of the ancient Hospital of St. Jean. 

5. — Magistrates of Bruges renewing the privileges of the 
Hanseatic League. 



jr O.: (J ' 



6i / / r inc, B 



rui 



"The Venice of the North" 59 

6. — Count Philip of Alsace granting a charter to Bruges 

(1190). 
7. — Magistrates visiting the Studio of Jean Van Eyck 

(1433). 
8. — The printing by movable type in Bruges by Jean 

Britto m 1446. 
9, — Count Louis of Maele laying the foundation of the 
Town-hall (1376). 
10. — Jacob Van Maerlant, father of Flemish poetry, born 

at Damme. 
11.— The Free-fair. 
12. — Opening of the new Zwyn canal in 1404. 

One of the most interesting of the almost 
innumerable mediaeval buildings in Bruges is 
the Palais du Franc which, with its many 
quaint turrets and gables, overlooks the fish 
market on the Quai Vert. The associations 
and history of this sumptuous bit of sixteenth 
century architecture date from the twelfth cen- 
tury — 1190 to be exact — when Philip of Al- 
sace granted a charter to the region stretching 
to the northward from the city to the sea, and 
from Aardenburg (now just across the Dutch 
frontier) to Dixmude. This wide tract of ter- 
ritory was called the Franc or Liberty of Bru- 
ges, and comprised ninety-one parishes and 
the towns of Ostende, Blankenburghe, Eccloo, 
Lissweghe, Aardenburg, Sluys and Dixmude. 
Of these only the first two are known to the 
tourists of the present day, while one naust 



60 The Spell of Flanders 

needs search the map very closely to find one 
or two of the others at all, but in the time of 
Philip all were busy centres of trade and indus- 
try. This was the hereditary land of the 
Karls, whose revolt against the attempt of 
Charles the Good to force them under the feu- 
dal yoke cost that monarch his life. 

The charter was called the Keurhrief and 
laid the foundation for the administration of a 
code of justice that, rude as it was, meant lib- 
erty for those who otherwise would have been 
utterly at the mercy of any feudal lord or wan- 
dering knight. It was the Magna Carta of a 
large part of the Count's dominions and even 
its stern eye-for-eye and life-for-life doctrine 
was tempered by equivalents in cash that might 
be paid. The life of a Karl was worth twice 
as much as that of a monk or priest, while for 
each injury there was an appropriate fine. He 
who broke a dyke must lose the hand that did 
the damage, besides forfeiting all his goods; 
for false weights the penalty was a fine of three 
livres for each offence. Fencing one's prop- 
erty against game entailed branding with a red 
hot iron, or trial by the Count — who might 
confiscate the goods of the guilty party, but his 
life and liberty were to be safe. This cruel 
game law was not repealed for nearly three cen- 



'The Venice of the North" 61 

turies, and must liave entailed much hardship. 
On the whole, however, the charter was liberal 
for its day, and the country under it flourished 
exceedingly — a sure evidence of wise laws. 

The Keurbrief was administered by the Mag- 
istrates of the Franc in the Palais du Franc, 
which was therefore a sort of special court. 
The present edifice is not the one erected by 
Philip, or used by him for the purpose, but 
dates from the early part of the fifteenth cen- 
tury. Part of it is still used as the Palais de 
Justice, but that part of the present structure 
is for the most part modern. The most inter- 
esting portion of the edifice, and the only one 
shown to tourists, is the Court Room contain- 
ing the magnificent Cheminee du Franc, or 
chimney-piece, erected in honour of the Ladies ' 
Peace negotiated by Margaret of Austria while 
Regent of the Netherlands in 1529. The work 
was executed from designs by Lancelot Blon- 
deel, a painter of Bruges, and was completed in 
1530. The fireplace itself is of black marble, 
surmounted by a frieze in white marble con- 
taining four bas-reliefs representing the his- 
tory of the chaste Suzanne. One cannot but 
wonder what was the connection of thought 
that suggested this story in conjunction with 
the commemoration of the Treaty of Cambrai, 



62 The Spell of F landers 

but at all events here it is. The reliefs are of 
varying excellence, the one showing Suzanne 
about to be seized by her aged admirers being 
very sharp and clear, while the fourth which 
shows the culprits being stoned to death is 
rather indistinct. 

The upper part of the monumental chimney 
is of oak and occupies almost the entire side of 
the room. In the centre stands Charles V, rep- 
resented as a Count of Flanders, nearly life size 
and finely carved. At his right are statues of 
Maximilian and Marie of Burgundy, and at the 
left Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Cas- 
tile — these being the Emperor's ancestors on 
his father's and mother's sides respectively. 
On the throne behind the Emperor are the busts 
of Philip the Handsome and Joanna of Spain, 
his father and mother, and below these are the 
portraits in small medallions of Charles de 
Lannoy, who won the victory of Pavia where 
Francis I, the King of France, was captured, 
and Margaret of Austria, who negotiated the 
treaty. As the last mentioned portrait is al- 
most invisible in the shadow of the Emperor it 
hardly seems as though the chimney-piece does 
justice to the loyal and talented woman whoso 
successful diplomacy the entire work is in- 
tended to commemorate. As an example of six- 




THE BELFKV, BRUGES. 



"The Venice of the North" 63 

teenth-century wood-carving, however, and as 
a most important historical monument, this 
chimney-piece is by no means the least inter- 
esting of the many things to be seen at Bruges. 

Unlike most tourists, the Professor seemed 
to be in no hurry to inspect the famous Belfry, 
although we had passed it a score of times dur- 
ing our stay. Facing the Grrande Place, and 
towering three hundred and fifty-three feet into 
the air, it could not be overlooked, while its loud 
chimes — which rang every quarter of an hour, 
and can be heard for many blocks around — 
insured that it could not be forgotten. More- 
over, we more than once took our evening 
meal at a little restaurant just across the Place 
from it and saw its graceful octagonal parapet 
on one occasion outlined against the fast-flying 
grey clouds of a summer storm and the next 
day against the blue sky of one of the few per- 
fect June days it was our fortune to enjoy. 
*' Too soon," he said, in answer to our inquir- 
ing glances — ' ' the Belfry belongs to the period 
of Bruges' splendour, while the buildings we 
have seen thus far date from the formative pe- 
riod when she was still little more than a for- 
tress on a marsh." 

The original structure dates from the very 
early Counts of Flanders — possibly from the 



64 The Spell of Flanders 

time of the first Baldwin — but was practically 
destroyed by a fire in the year 1280. It was 
then that the present edifice was begun, at a 
period when the commercial and industrial im- 
portance of the city was already very great. 
The city's seal and archives were stored in a 
strong room within the belfry walls, where 
four wrought iron doors secured by ten locks 
and ten keys guarded them against abstraction 
by the emissaries of some Count who might de- 
sire to curtail the privileges of the city. Eight 
of these keys were kept by the deans of the 
eight leading guilds — the butchers, bakers, 
shoemakers, tailors, weavers, brokers, carpen- 
ters and blacksmiths — who thus virtually con- 
trolled the government. This- room the Pro- 
fessor desired to see above all else in the old 
structure. We found the four wrought iron 
doors, but the archive chamber no longer con- 
tains archives or the city's seal. It was a most 
interesting old room, nevertheless, and one that 
ought to particularly interest the builders of 
the elaborate burglar-proof and earthquake- 
proof vaults that extend below so many great 
banking houses in America. Alas ! neither the 
four doors nor the ten locks rendered this an- 
cient strong-room for the protection of the 
city's liberties proof against the cunning and 



*'The Venice of the North" 65 

power of tyrants, and the precious charters it 
once held were gradually taken away, despite 
the stout handiwork of one Erembald, black- 
smith, who received eighty-one pounds for forg- 
ing the doors in the year 1290. 

To reach the bells one mounts a steep, dark 
staircase which is said to contain four hundred 
and two steps, although we did not count them. 
The chimes are claimed to be the finest in Eu- 
rope, and comprise forty-nine bells weighing in 
the aggregate fifty-six thousand, one hundred 
and sixty-six pounds. They were cast by 
George Dumery in 1743 and are noted for their 
soft tone. The tambour which operates the 
chimes that ring every quarter of an hour 
weighs nineteen thousand, nine hundred and 
sixty-six pounds and is pierced by thirty thou- 
sand, five hundred square holes in which are 
fixed the pegs that pull the strings commanding 
the hammers hanging outside the bells. By al- 
tering the position of these pegs the tunes can 
be varied, but the programme played while we 
were in the city was as follows : 

At the hour: *' Eondo, 15th sonata," by Mo- 
zart; at the quarter past: " Le Carillon de 
Dunkerque," a popular air; at the half: '' The 
Day of Happiness," by Mozart; at the three- 
quarters past: '' The Three Drummers," a 



66 The Spell of Flanders 

Flemish popular air. The official bell-ringer is 
M. Toon Nauwelaerts, a native of Lierre, where 
his ancestors have been bell-ringers for more 
than a hundred years. Although a young man, 
M. Nauwelaerts won an international competi- 
tion of bell-ringers organised by the city of 
Bruges in 1911. 

The view from the summit of the Belfry is 
one of the most superb in Flanders, especially 
if the visitor is so fortunate as to have fallen 
on one of those days when the clouds roll in 
great fleecy masses of dazzling white that form 
a wondrous background for the grim grey tower 
of St. Sauveur and the tapering red spire of 
the cathedral. As one looks down upon the sea 
of tiny red-roofed houses far below he is trans- 
ported in fancy to the time, centuries ago, when 
watchmen peered off across these very para- 
pets day and night to sound the alarm of an 
approaching foe, or announce the approach of 
their mighty Count or some noble visitor. In 
so doing he can realise what the old Belfry has 
meant to the city on the Roya. ' ' For six hun- 
dred years," wrote M. Gilliodts, one of the 
city's learned archivists, " this belfry has 
watched over the city of Bruges. It has beheld 
her triumphs and her failures, her glory and 
her shame, her prosperity and her gradual de- 



*^The Venice of the North^> 67 

cay, and, in spite of so many vicissitudes, it is 
still standing to bear witness to the genius of 
our forefathers, to awaken alike memories of 
old times and admiration for one of the most 
splendid monuments of civic architecture which 
the Middle Ages have produced." 

The best time of all in which to study and 
admire the external aspect of this noble struc- 
ture is when the sun is sinking to rest and its 
rays fall slantingly across the sombre pile of 
tawny brick, touching up its projections here 
and there with high lights that contrast sharply 
with the deep shadows behind them, and listen 
— as did so often our poet Longfellow — to the 
wonderfully sweet chimes as they ring the 
quarter hours: 

" Low and loud and sweetly blended, 
Low at times and loud at times, 
And changing like a poet's rliymes 
Eing the beautiful wild chimes 
From the Belfry in the market 
Of the ancient town of Bruges." 

The Halles themselves, of which the Belfry 
is the chief ornament, are notable for their 
considerable size, forming a rectangle one hun- 
dred and forty-three feet broad and two hun- 
dred and seventy-six feet deep. The archeo- 
logical museum in one wing — which is in 



68 The Spell of Flanders 

course of removal to the Gruuthuise Palace — 
enabled us to see the interior of the structure, 
the extent of which indicates the volume of 
business that was transacted there when Bruges 
was known as '' the Venice of the North." 
The great commercial activity of Bruges dur- 
ing the period of its prosperity, from the 
twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, was due pri- 
marily to the fact that the Counts of Flanders 
decreed that it should be the sole port of entry 
for the entire country. The burghers quickly 
perceived the priceless value of this privilege, 
and by their enterprise and liberality made the 
city the foremost metropolis in Europe in the 
volume and variety of its international trade. 
With London its relations were especially inti- 
mate and cordial, each city granting to the 
merchants of the other privileges that in those 
days were almost unheard of. For example, 
the merchants of Bruges in time of war were 
granted forty days of grace in which to dispose 
of their property and provide for their personal 
safety. On one occasion, while a war was ac- 
tually going on, they were given a special truce 
of ninety days in which to traffic freely with the 
subjects of the King of England. The" reason 
for these unusual favours was that Bruges was 
the great market where the wool of England, 



'The Venice of the North" 69 

on which the prosperity of the country de- 
pended, was disposed of. Not infrequently 
the archives record instances where the Kings 
of England treated with the chief magistrates 
of Bruges on terms of complete equality, as if 
with a sovereign power. 

Nor was England the only country repre- 
sented in the market places of Bruges during 
this period. The Doges of Venice often 
treated directly with the Burgomasters of the 
Italian city's Flemish rival, while the powerful 
Hanseatic League established here their chief 
establishment for the Netherlands. The list of 
the " Nations," as the groups of foreign mer- 
chants were called, makes curious reading at 
the present day. There were English, Scotch, 
French, Lusitanians, Castilians, Venetians, 
Genoans, Florentines ; merchants from Aragon, 
Biscay, Lucca, Milan, Lombardy and Navarre. 
The German merchants from the Hanseatic 
towns of Lubeck, Hamburg, Cologne, Dantzig 
and Bremen numbered no less than forty 
houses in the year 1362, while the Italian and 
Spanish firms resident in the city were still 
more numerous. Many of these concerns were 
among the foremost trading and banking 
houses of the Middle Ages, with mercantile 
transactions extending into every part of the 



70 The Spell of Flanders 

known world and strong enough financially to 
loan money to princes. When the Duke of 
Pembroke was captured by Du Guesclin in the 
Hundred Years' War between England and 
France it was in Bruges that his countrymen 
borrowed the seventy thousand pounds de- 
manded as ransom. 

As befitted the first mercantile city in the 
world, business methods were more advanced 
at Bruges than anywhere else. It is claimed 
that the first insurance policies ever drawn up 
were devised and signed in Bruges about the 
year 1300. A form of registration of land ti- 
tles was in use there as early as the fifteenth 
century. Its Bourse, or central exchange for 
merchandise of all kinds, is claimed to have 
been the first ever established. 

In a single day in the year 1456 no less than 
150 foreign vessels arrived at Bruges through 
its canals and the River Zwyn, and while these 
were, of course, small craft as compared to 
those of the present day there was then no port 
in the world that could boast of an equal quan- 
tity of shipping. Industrially, the town was 
no less important, having some fifty thousand 
artisans belonging to fifty-two different guilds. 

The silting up of the Zwyn, rendering the ap- 
proach and departure of shipping difficult and 



"The Venice of the North" 71 

uncertain, started a downward movement tliat 
in less than a century destroyed all of this 
great activity and prosperity. Had it come 
alone it is probable that the sturdy merchants 
of Bruges would have found a way to overcome 
this adverse factor to their continued success, 
either by digging a new channel to the sea or 
by dredging, but misfortunes — as is their pro- 
verbial wont — did not come singly. In 1488, 
as a result of a conflict between the city and 
Maximilian, the stores and exchanges were 
closed for three months and all business came 
to a standstill. Seven years later it was said 
that nearly five thousand houses stood vacant 
and abandoned, no one caring either to buy or 
rent them. One by one the great merchants of 
the city closed their counting-rooms and went 
away; one by one the artisans departed. The 
last of the " Nations " to desert the declining 
city was the Hanseatic League, which stood by 
it loyally until 1516, when it removed its offices 
to Antwerp, by that time the acknowledged me- 
tropolis of the North. 

The Minnewater, or Lac d 'Amour, is — 
apart from its exquisite beauty — of interest 
as another memento of the city's former com- 
merce. This was the chief harbour for ship- 
ping, and, no doubt, was thronged with sailing 



72 The Spell of Flanders 

craft, while its banks must have swarmed with 
merchants checking their arriving or departing 
cargoes, stevedores carrying bales and boxes to 
and fro, clumsy wagons and carts for trans- 
porting merchandise to the warehouses of the 
city and all the varied noise and bustle of a 
great seaport. It is strangely silent and de- 
serted now, and the grass grows tall around the 
round tower built in 1398 by Jan van Ouden- 
aarde, and the white swans float slowly and 
majestically beneath the black arches of the ad- 
joining bridge which is eight years older than 
the tower. It is said that he, or she, who 
stands on the central arch of this bridge at 
midnight and expresses a desire will have the 
wish fulfilled, but we did not try it. Before 
leaving this charming spot, however, we went 
along the banls:s of the little lake to a point 
where, looking back, we had the round tower 
and the bridge in the middle distance, the lake 
in the foreground, and the towers of the city 
on the horizon. This view is, without doubt, 
the finest the old town affords. 

The visitor to Bruges who is interested in the 
past should devote at least half a day to a pil- 
grimage to Damme, distant about an hour's 
walk along the canal that leads from the new 
port of Bruges to the sea. In 1180 this now all 



''The Venice of the North" 73 

but forgotten town was made an independent 
commune with two burgomasters, and for two 
centuries thereafter it enjoyed a great and in- 
creasing prosperity. It became the chief en- 
trepot for the great commercial city of Bruges 
during its period of splendour, and most of the 
leading merchants maintained offices there. 
Its warehouses were crowded with merchandise 
from every corner of Europe — wines from 
France and Spain, beer from England, wool 
from Scotland, silk from Italy, all manner of 
cloths and stuffs, apices of all kinds, metals of 
every variety known to the metal workers of 
those days, rare and precious goods of every 
description. 

To-day the very scene of all this mercantile 
activity has vanished. Gone are the busy 
warehouses, the docks and wharves, even the 
very harbour in which — according to ancient 
chroniclers — a score of ships of the largest 
size then built could anchor easily. All that 
remains is a diminutive Grande Place sur- 
rounded by several ancient edifices, and the 
ruins of a huge church. In the centre of the 
Place is a modern statue of Jacob van Maer- 
lant, called " the Father of Flemish Poets." 
Fame has surely never played any more as- 
tounding trick than that out of the great host 



74 The Spell of Flanders 

who lived in this busy commercial town in the 
days of its prosperity — portly burgomasters, 
skilled in winning the plaudits of the populace ; 
shrewd, far-sighted merchants grown rich from 
the commerce with distant lands; skilled arti- 
sans and craftsmen in a hundred guilds — all, 
all are forgotten, while an obscure poet, whom 
very likely many of those who knew him de- 
rided as a fool, is alone remembered as the one 
great man of Damme. 

Facing the Grande Place is the ancient Hotel 
de Ville, which, in addition to being the most 
notable monument of the dead town, is also an 
estaminet where the living can get a little re- 
freshment. The main floor of this edifice is 
divided into three large rooms. The first one 
is the estaminet, with its array of bottles and 
its beer pump contrasting most incongruously 
with the remaining vestiges of its ancient 
grandeur. 

Adjoining this is a large, irregular and un- 
furnished room, bare of ornamentation save for 
two corl^els, or Gothic brackets, which support 
the maixi rafters of the ceiling. These are of 
wood, elaborately carved. One represents 
Van Maerlant in his study, seated at a desk, 
with what M. Havard calls a '' chaste Su- 
zanne " bathing in a tub over his head. The 



"The Venice of the North" 75 

other shows King David with his harp, and is 
embellished with sundry other figures. 

The remaining room is by far the most inter- 
esting, for it was here that Charles the Bold 
publicly betrothed Margaret of York. The 
room, which is officially termed the Salle des 
Deliberations, or Council Hall, has a fine old 
fireplace said to have been restored during the 
seventeenth century. It is decorated with two 
female figures in hoop skirts and bears the 
motto ^^ Farcer e subjectis et dehellare super- 
bos." This quotation from Vergil (^neid 6: 
853) sounds rather pompous and out of place in 
the council chamber of this now completely van- 
quished and ruined city, and must have seemed 
so even in the seventeenth century, but it may 
have been a survival of an inscription placed 
over the original fireplace in the days when 
Damme dared- to close its gates even against the 
men from Bruges- itself, and the puissant 
Counts of Flanders had to use force to compel 
it to open them. 

It was in the year 1468 that this room in 
which we are now standing had its one great 
day and became, for a brief space, the setting 
of one of those splendid mediaeval scenes that 
bards and novelists so fondly recall, and that 
— in our age of up-to-date inventions — the 



76 The Spell of Flanders 

moving-picture men are so busily reconstruct- 
ing and re-enacting. The Princess had landed 
at Sluys, near the mouth of the River Zwyn, 
where the Duke of Burgundy paid her a brief 
visit in secret — possibly to see what she looked 
like, for this was a marriage of state and in- 
tended to further his far-reaching ambitions. 
Probably if she had been as homely as a witch 
the wedding would have taken place just the 
same, but as the reverse was the case the pre- 
liminary inspection must have been very grati- 
fying. The following day the royal lady and 
her company rode to Damme in a fleet of barges 
gorgeously decorated with gold, rich velvets 
and rare silks. Here she was lodged in this 
very Council Chamber of the Hotel de Ville, 
and here the Duke came in great state to per- 
form the public ceremony of betrothal. The 
wedding ring was given in the presence of the 
English Bishop who had accompanied the Prin- 
cess, and Charles announced that he would 
await her presence on the morrow at Bruges, 
where the wedding itself was to be celebrated 
in the Cathedral. 

The wedding procession as it departed for 
Bruges the next day must have been another 
brave sight for the proud citizens of Damme. 
The bride, reclining in a litter borne by four 



'The Venice of the North" 77 

white horses, wore a magnificent gown of cloth 
of gold, a crown on her forehead, a jewelled 
necklace, and a mantle clasped with precious 
stones. Around her pranced her ladies of hon- 
our, mounted on white horses gaily bedecked 
with crimson satin. Immediately behind this 
picturesque group came five decorated chariots 
bearing a score of beautiful ladies from the 
English court, and following these came the 
guard of honour, or escort, provided by the 
Duke — a squadron of counts, barons and 
knights, with their faithful squires, their horses 
covered with gold and silver, the riders re- 
splendent in bright coloured velvet and rich 
lace. The good people of the Middle Ages 
dearly loved a pageant, and this surely was one 
to rejoice the heart of every citizen of Damme, 
for here was the pride of the chivalry of all Eu- 
rope — fair ladies and brave men from oversea 
and from every corner of the great Duke 's wide 
dominions — thronging the Grande Place as the 
procession formed, and then falling into their 
respective places as the long line passed out 
through the city gate and proceeded on the 
straight, tree-lined grande route that led to 
Bruges. 




CHAPTER V 

DIXMUDE AND FUKNES 

)HE tourist who desires to get away from 
the maili thoroughfare of European 
travel, to explore out-of-the-way corners, 
and discover for himself wonders and beauties 
that the learned Mr. Baedeker never heard of, 
cannot do better than to turn away to the west- 
ward from the great Ostende-Brussels express 
route and visit the all but forgotten cities of 
Dixmude, Furnes and Nieuport. All but for- 
gotten, that is, in June, 1914. The world has 
heard of them since, and it will be many hun- 
dreds of years before it forgets them again! 
These little places, which when we visited them 
were nothing but sleepy and quiet country 
towns, were great and prosperous cities in the 
period when Bruges was slowly rising toward 
its zenith, and the Prafessor therefore decreed 
that they must come next on our itinerary. 
We accordingly spent an evening studying the 
correspondences, or ^connections, of the State 
Railway and the chemin de fer vicinal, or local 

78 



Dixmude and Furnes 79 

steam tramway, and started at daybreak the 
next morning. 

Right here it may be said that the Belgian 
State Railway did its best to compensate us 
for whatever shortcomings we found in the 
weather or in the country generally. Perfect 
its service can hardly be said to have been, 
but it was excellent and amazingly cheap. Our 
party purchased every two weeks billets d'abon- 
nement that cost us just forty-one francs each, 
or about $8.00, and entitled us to ride on any 
State-owned railway line in the country day or 
night for fifteen days. These were second- 
class, the third costing twenty-three francs, and 
first sixty francs. The last, by the way, is a 
useless luxury, as on the local lines the first- 
class compartments are identical with the sec- 
ond-class except for a white tidy placed at the 
back of the cushions. Frequently there was 
not even the tidy, but the sign, '^ Reserve — 
VoorheJiouden/ ' converted an ordinary second- 
class compartment into first-class — a dis- 
tinction that gave the traveller very little 
for his money, save the privilege of riding 
alone. 

On the main express routes that radiate out- 
ward from Brussels in every direction there 
were a number of rapides, or fast express 



80 The Spell of Flanders 

trains, that made very good time indeed — a 
speed of a kilometre per minute being about tbe 
average. On tbe international express trains, 
some of wbicb are first-class only, tbe speed was 
somewbat bigber, but tbese we never bad occa- 
sion to use. After tbe rapides came tbe express 
trains, generally marked '' direct " or " semi- 
direct," according to wbetber or not tbey made 
any intermediate stops before reacbing tbeir 
final destination. Tbese were only moderately 
fast, and, if tbey did stop anywbere, lingered so 
long tbat tbe time gained by tbeir previous 
speed was largely lost. Tben came tbe type of 
local train called omnibus or ordinaire, tbat 
stopped at every station. To tbe American 
tbese trains would seem astoundingly slow, even 
for a land tbat is never in a burry. Eacb stop 
is dragged out, minute after minute, until it 
seems certain tbat eitber a terrible accident 
must bave occurred abead, or tbe train crew bas 
gone on strike. Actually, more tban once, we 
did see part of tbe crew returning from an es- 
taminet bard by wbitber tbey" bad gone to bave 
a friendly glass. Finally, bowever, tbe red- 
capped station master blows bis wbistle and tbe 
train reluctantly pulls away. To make a trip 
of sixty kilometres (forty miles) by one of tbese 
trains took, on more tban one occasion, two 



Dixmude and Furnes 81 

hours and a quarter, and the train arrived on 
time! 

This last point is a feature of the Belgian 
railway trains. They are almost invariably on 
time, and lateness is a matter for strict exam- 
ination on the part of the officials and severe 
penalties for those responsible. However, there 
does not seem to be much credit attached to be- 
ing on time when the schedule allows for a stop 
of from two to fifteen minutes at each station. 
The man primarily responsible for the move- 
ment of the trains is not the conductor or en- 
gineer but the chef de gare, or station-master. 
He, or his deputy if the station is a large one 
with many trains, must be on hand when each 
train pulls in, and give the signal for its de- 
parture. His dark-red cap, embroidered with 
gold braid, is therefore in evidence at every sta- 
tion, and until this high functionary gives the 
word no train moves. As it is, each leaves ex- 
actly on time — but not a second before, no mat- 
ter if every passenger has been in place and the 
doors slammed and fastened for the last five 
minutes ! 

The foregoing description of the Belgian 
State Eailway refers, of course, to the service 
as it existed down. to the end of July. Since 
then the destruction of tracks, bridges and tun- 



82 The Spell of Flanders 

nels by one army or another has put most of 
the system out of operation. One of the sad- 
dest phases of the war is that every one of the 
thousands of employes of the Belgian State 
Eailway — from the highest supervising offi- 
cial to the humblest track walker — was work- 
ing faithfully and efficiently, and planning the 
future of his frugal life, upon the assurance 
that promotion and an old-age pension would 
reward his zeal. This obligation toward its 
employes the Belgian Govenmient has ever 
faithfully observed, and in the course of our 
travels we met many middle-aged men who told 
us that they were looking forward to the day 
when their terms of duty would end and they 
would be pensioned on half pay to enjoy a few 
years of well-earned repose. Probably not one 
of these men ever seriously dreamed that an 
event could occur that would, in the course of 
a few swift weeks, blot out the record of his 
life work, and deprive him of all opportunity 
for promotion, for pension, and even for em- 
ployment. No doubt the death toll of the bat- 
tles on the plains of Flanders has been heavy 
among these courteous, capable and industrious 
men — many of whom were liable for military 
service in time of war — but let us hope that 
peace, when it comes, will bring to each survivor 



Dixmude and Furnes 83 

his old post again, with the old good service 
record unf orgotten, and that he will receive the 
pension he rightfully expects and that his coun- 
try would gladly give — at last. 

To those who enjoy rambling through the by- 
ways of history there is no town richer in as- 
sociations, yet less spoiled by the visits of the 
all but ubiquitous tourist, than Dixmude. At 
present this little city is situated fifteen miles 
from the sea, yet all the ancient chroniclers aver 
that prior to the thirteenth century it was a 
seaport with a commerce overseas and a not in- 
considerable fishing fleet. As one looks across 
the miles and miles of pleasant fields, inter- 
spersed with waving windmills and tiny vil- 
lages, this part of the ancient city's history 
seems utterly incredible, but it is too well au- 
thenticated to be disputed. Ten times, so the 
histories tell us, Dixmude was besieged and 
bravely defended by its citizens. More than 
once it was destroyed by fire and rebuilt, but 
at last the blight that destroyed the prosperity 
of its larger and more powerful neighbours, 
Ypres, Bruges and Ghent, struck at the heart 
of its industries as well and it sank by imper- 
ceptible degrees into its long sleep. 

Like the abode of the Sleeping Princess, of 
whom Tennyson wrote, one might almost fancy 



84 The Spell of Flanders 

that all life had stopped centuries ago at the 
wave of some magic wand. The summer's sun 
and winter's rain and snow of half a thousand 
years have left but the faintest traces on its old 
houses and its great parish church of St. Nich- 
olas. The pride and joy of this church is its 
altar screen, or juhe, said to have been designed 
by Urban Taillebert, the architect of the Church 
of St. Martin at Ypres and many other cele- 
brated works of around the year 1600. There 
is also an ** Adoration of the Magi " by Jor- 
daens, and the usual collection of minor works 
of art. To us, however, this old church was far 
more interesting externally than within, its 
huge clock tower resembling nothing else that 
we had seen in Flanders or elsewhere. The 
Grande Place, from which one can obtain a fine 
view of the old church with a row of Lilliputian 
houses nestling below it, is big enough to accom- 
modate all the present inhabitants of the town 
in one corner. In its prime Dixmude is said to 
have had thirty thousand inhabitants, and all 
the room on the Place was, no doubt, needed on 
market days, but it does not have a fifteenth of 
that number now, and the wide, grass-grown 
expanse of cobble-stones is entirely deserted. 

The jube, or altar screen, already mentioned, 
is the one great ' ' sight ' ' of the little town, and 



Dixmude and Furnes 85 

every one asks without fail whether you have 
yet seen it. It is assuredly well worth seeing, 
being wonderfully graceful and dainty, and, 
perhaps, the finest thing of its kind in Northern 
Europe. The other famous chef d'osuvre of 
Dixmude is culinary instead of artistic. This 
is a kind of brioche called zieltjenshoeken, or 
gateaux d'ames — a sort of " soul cooky," as 
it were. Twice a year, on certain religious oc- 
casions, the inhabitants of Dixmude consume 
vast quantities of these confections, which are 
claimed to possess the property — if eaten on 
the prescribed days — of delivering one's soul 
from purgatory and sending it straight to Para- 
dise. We were unfortunately unable to verify 
this, as our visit did not come on the right day, 
but we found the butter of Dixmude — which 
has enjoyed a great reputation for centuries — 
to be all that was claimed for it, although the 
Professor insisted on putting a shake of salt 
on his, to the great horror of the maid who 
served our dinner. 

Had some Madame Thebes told us what the 
near future had in store for this sleepy and 
quaint old city we would have spent days in- 
stead of hours in it, but last June its impor- 
tance did not seem to justify giving it a chapter 
so we planned to visit Furnes the same day. 



86 The Spell of Flanders 

To-day the name of Dixmude has been heard to 
the farthest ends of the world, its great square 
echoes to the tramp of armed men, its old 
church — after standing for so many centuries 
— is said to have fallen before the withering 
storm of shrapnel and shells that for days 
rained down upon its defenders. It has been 
taken and retaken by each side in the gigantic 
combat more than once. It is asleep no longer, 
forgotten no longer ; and, in years to come, rev- 
erent visitors from many nations will visit what 
may remain of the ancient town. For these the 
chief interest will not lie in the walls of the 
ruined church or the relics of the departed 
juhe, if any there be, but out in the open, pleas- 
ant fields where, in trenches that the kindly 
hand of nature will gradually obliterate, the 
brave men of four nations met in one of the 
fiercest and bloodiest death grapples of the 
great war. 

But last July both Madame Thebes and the 
cannon were silent, so again taking our faith- 
ful omnibus after the dinner — which we 
obtained at one of the little restaurants over- 
looking the Grande Place — we next journeyed 
northward to Furnes, which is only a few miles 
distant across the flat Flemish plain. Furnes, 
according to the antiquarians, dates from as 



Dixmude and Furnes 87 



early as the year 800, and its day of greatness 
had come and gone centuries ago. Its crooked 
streets, quaint gabled houses, and picturesque 
corners seemed more mediaeval than any place 
we had visited — surpassing even Dixmude in 
this respect. It was here, by the way, that 
Leopold I was welcomed to the country when 
he arrived after being chosen to be the first 
King of the Belgians in 1831. The Hotel of the 
Nobele Eose, near the Grande Place, is said to 
have been the Palace of the Countess Gertrude 
of Flanders in 1093, and if so, must be one of 
the oldest houses in Flanders. The widow of 
Count Philip of Alsace is also said to have re- 
sided here in 1218. More celebrated, in years 
to come, than any of these incidents, will be the 
fact that Furnes was for many months of the 
Great War the headquarters of the brave Bel- 
gian army, and the place of residence of Bel- 
gium's heroic King. 

The great annual event at Furnes is the fa- 
mous Procession, which takes place the third 
Sunday in July. It dates from 1100 or there- 
abouts, when, according to the legend, Count 
Eobert of Flanders was on his way back from 
the Holy Land, bringing with him a piece of 
the true cross. His voyage across the Mediter- 
ranean, through the Straits of Gibraltar and 



88 The Spell of Flanders 

past the stormy Bay of Biscay, was without in- 
cident, but as he was nearing home a fearful 
storm in the English Channel threatened to send 
his frail bark to the bottom. The waves were 
running mountain high and all the party ex- 
pected each moment to be their last when the 
Count suddenly bethought himself of his holy 
relic and vowed that, if his life were spared, he 
would present it to the first church of which he 
might see the spire. 

Immediately the storm ceased, the wind died 
down, the sea became as smooth as a mill-pond, 
and as the happy mariners looked toward the 
shore of their dear Flanders a ray of sunlight 
fell upon the tower of Ste. Walburge in Furnes. 
To this church, therefore, in fulfilment of his 
vow, Count Robert presented the relic, now 
doubly precious by reason of this miracle. To 
commemorate this event the canons of the 
church organised a procession which took place 
every year and was marked by various histor- 
ical representations of the return of Count Rob- 
ert. About 1650 an act of sacrilege committed 
by a soldier, who was publicly executed for his 
crime, led to the procession taking on certain 
penitential features by way of expiation on the 
part of the city for this sin. From that time on 
the procession has included representations, for 



Dixmude and Furnes 89 

the most part by peasants dressed up for the 
parts, of Abraham and the Prophets, the Flight 
into Egypt, the Visit of the Three Wise Men to 
the Cradle at Bethlehem, so often painted by the 
artists of the Flemish school, the Stable and the 
Birth of Christ, the Court of Herod, Jesus in 
the Midst of the Doctors, the Penitent Magda- 
len, the Entry of Christ into Jerusalem, the 
Feast at Cana, the Garden of Olives, the Be- 
trayal of Judas, and a series of scenes repre- 
senting the crucifixion, burial and resurrection. 
Following these tableaux come the penitents, 
walking masked and barefooted, clad for the 
most part in brown Capuchin robes, and singing 
or chanting certain lines in Flemish. Many of 
the leading actors in the tableaux have ' ' speak- 
ing parts, ' ' all of them in Flemish and delivered 
with varying degrees of histrionic skill to the 
crowd that lines the streets. The whole per- 
formance, apart from its great antiquity, is of 
interest as being a local and original represen- 
tation of the Biblical story — a sort of Flemish 
passion play, less refined and artistic than that 
of the Swiss peasants of Oberammergau, but 
none the less conscientious, earnest and sincere. 
At one time Furnes ranked next to Ghent and 
Bruges among the cities of Flanders in official 
importance, if not in population and industry, 



90 The Spell of Flanders 

its chdtellenie comprising fifty-two villages. 
In 1297 it was besieged by Robert, the Count of 
Artois, who fell five years later at the great bat- 
tle of Courtrai. At Furnes the French arms 
were successful and the city was captured and 
sacked, " more than two thousand houses being 
burned in two days," according to the contem- 
porary chronicles. Philip the Bold, the first of 
the Burgundian Dukes to rule over Flanders, 
rebuilt its fortifications, and the city was 
deemed worthy under Philip the Good to be 
designated as the place of residence of the 
French Dauphin, who subsequently became 
Louis XI, when that remarkable young man was 
in exile through his father's displeasure. It 
may well have been here that the wiliest and 
most unscrupulous of all the Kings of France 
planned that tortuous and secretive policy that 
— steadily pursued year after year — brought 
the powerful House of Burgundy low at last 
and made France one nation instead of two or 
three. 

The quaint old Grande Place of Fumes, while 
smaller than that of Dixmude, is equally pictur- 
esque. On one side is the old Meat Market, 
dating from the first quarter of the seventeenth 
century ; and hard by is the Maison des Espag- 
nols, or House of the Spaniards, formerly used 



Dixmude and Furnes 91 

as a town-hall and erected in the thirteenth cen- 
tury. The present Hotel de Ville also faces 
the Place and is well worth a visit, although 
none of its rooms are sufficiently notable to 
merit a detailed description. The ancient 
Chdtellenie, now used as Court House, was be- 
gun in 1612 — the year the Hotel de Ville was 
finished — and is chiefly memorable as the meet- 
ing-place of the Spanish Inquisition. This 
body held its sessions in the antechamber on 
the first floor and not in the main hall, which is 
decorated by a mural painting by de Vriendt 
representing Philip the Fair swearing to ob- 
serve the rights and privileges of the city. The 
establishment of the Inquisition by his name- 
sake and grandson, Philip II, affords a ghastly 
commentary on the manner in which that mon- 
arch kept the similar pledges with which he 
began his reign. Another fine old edifice on 
the Grande Place is the Belfry, square for half 
its height, then octagonal, and finally sur- 
mounted by a bulbous spire, heavy and clumsy, 
but none the less exceedingly quaint and pic- 
turesque. Not a few of the ancient houses 
around the Place and in the adjacent streets 
were sufficiently mediaeval to have merited a 
visit had our stay in this fine old Flemish town 
been longer; but, so far as we could learn, 



92 The Spell of Flanders 

none possessed any particular historical inter- 
est. 

Besides Ste. Walburge, already mentioned — 
which was evidently planned to be a cathedral, 
but of which only the choir was ever completed 
— Fumes possesses the church of St. Nicholas, 
which has a noble square tower, also unfinished. 
Both churches are disappointing within, al- 
though the former is, no doubt, of great interest 
to architects as an example of the ogival style, 
while the latter is Gothic and dates from the 
fourteenth century. The choir stalls in St. 
Walburge are notable examples of the Flemish 
woodcarvers' art, although far less ancient than 
the church itself. 

If the time of your stay is midsummer, as 
it will be if you come to Furnes to see the Pro- 
cession, do not go away without a day on the 
dunes at Coxyde. This beach is less well 
known, as yet, than those at Ostende, Heyst and 
Blankenburghe farther to the east but it is in- 
creasing in popularity very rapidly. A land 
company, with head offices at Brussels, is en- 
gaged ' in erecting summer houses among the 
dunes which look too American in architecture 
and manner of construction for this country 
where houses are generally built as if intended 
to last a thousand years. A little chemin de fer 



Dixmude and Furnes 93 

vicinal runs from Furnes to Coxyde. In ad- 
dition to the splendid beacli and the dunes, 
which have a dreary grandeur that is always 
fascinating, the shrimp fishermen, or pecheurs 
de crevettes, will make the short trip well worth 
while. 

These weather-beaten men, with their rough 
oilskin hats and suits, are the modern repre- 
sentatives of an ancient Flemish industry — 
shrimp fishing having been carried on along 
these coasts literally from time immemorial. 
They are very picturesque, both while at work 
on horseback dragging in their nets, and while 
lounging along the shore, pipe in mouth. Jean 
Delvin has a fine painting representing them 
in the Museum at Ghent, while one of the most 
powerful of Meunier's statues is devoted to the 
same subject. 




CHAPTER VI 

NIEUPORT AND THE YSER CANAL 

JHEN the war is over, and tlie era of com- 
memoration begins, Belgium, if slie is 
free, should erect at Nieuport, close to 
the great locks that mark the outlet of the Yser 
Canal — or at some point along the canal where 
the fighting was the fiercest — a monument 
higher than that at Leipzig where the Germans 
recall their victory over Napoleon, higher than 
the great lion that guards the field of Waterloo. 
At its summit should stand a heroic-sized figure 
in imperishable bronze of a Belgian infantry- 
man, one of the round-capped " demons " 
whose indomitable will and unwavering courage 
held this last bit of Belgian soil against over- 
powering numbers for days. It was here that 
Germany's magnificent rush from Antwerp to 
the Channel ports was stopped, and it was the 
last remnant of the little Belgian army that, 
turning on its foe like a lion at bay, hurled back 
every assault until the little Yser Canal ran red 

94 



Nieuport and the Yser Canal 95 

and until, at last, the great reinforcing hosts of 
the allies came. 

The little straggling town of Nienport, peace- 
ful and sleepy as it looked last summer, is not 
a stranger to battles and sieges. In the time of 
William the Conqueror Lombartzyde, now a lit- 
tle hamlet on the chemin de fer vicinal behind 
the dunes from Nieuport to Ostende, was the 
shipping port of this region, but great storms 
filled the harbour with sand and the citizens es- 
tablished a " New Port " on another branch 
of the Yser in 1160. It was fortified three years 
later, and for several centuries was one of the 
strong towns defending the Low Countries on 
the French frontier. Its strategic importance 
made it the scene of many battles and sieges. 
It was destroyed by the English and their al- 
lies, the men of Ghent, in 1383. The lonely 
tower or Donjon of the Templars, standing on 
the edge of the town, is all that remains of a 
monastery of that order which was ruined at 
that time. 

The city itself, however, was quickly rebuilt, 
and among other memorable sieges beat off a 
great French force in the year 1489. In 1568 
the Spanish, under Conde, beat a French 
army commanded by Turenne not far from the 
city. Another famous fight before the walls of 



96 The Spell of Flanders 

the old town took jjlace in the year 1600 during 
the long war between Spain and her revolted 
Provinces. Count Maurice of Nassau, at the 
head of twelve thousand men from the United 
Provinces, had invaded Flanders, which still 
remained under the power of Spain, and march- 
ing rapidly from the Scheldt past Ostende, pro- 
ceeded to besiege Nieuport. The Archduke 
Albert, hastily raising an army of fifteen thou- 
sand Spaniards, advanced unexpectedly on the 
Dutch, who were taken completely by surprise. 
Perceiving that he was caught in a trap, Count 
Maurice — in order to give his men the courage 
of despair — ordered the Dutch fleet to with- 
draw, and told his soldiers that they must either 
conquer or ' ' be prepared to drink all the water 
behind them." 

Meanwhile an advance guard of the Dutch 
army was driven back by the advancing Span- 
iards who, thinking they had met the whole 
army, sent couriers to Bruges and Ghent an- 
nouncing the victory. Bells were rung to cele- 
brate the Archduke's supposed success which, 
as the event proved, was a strategic victory for 
Nassau as it delayed the enemy several hours. 
It was three o'clock in the afternoon when the 
advancing Spaniards found themselves face to 
face with the main army of the republic, drawn 



Nieuport and the Yser Canal 97 

up on the very beacli outside the city walls. 
Perceiving their sturdy ranks and unyielding 
front the Archduke hesitated, but the Spaniards 
urged him not to let them lose their prey, whom 
they regarded as hateful rebels and heretics. 

Thus encouraged, the Archduke gave the 
order to advance and the battle soon became 
general. The fate of the day was decided by 
the artillery of the Dutch which, by a fortunate 
order of their far-sighted commander, had 
been lifted off from the sand and mounted on 
platforms made from boughs, brush and such 
timber as was handy. That of the Archduke, 
mounted in haste directly on the beach, em- 
bedded itself in the sand at each discharge until 
it became useless, while that of the republicans 
became more accurate and deadly. At the same 
time the rays of the setting sun falling directly 
in the eyes of the Spanish soldiers, who were 
facing westward, blinded them and caused them 
to fire wildly. The Archduke performed prod- 
igies of valour, having two horses killed 
under him and being himself slightly wounded, 
but as darkness began to fall on the bloody 
beach Count Maurice ordered a charge by a 
force of cavalry he had held in reserve. This 
fresh force proved irresistible, the Spanish lines 
began to give way on all sides, and the retreat 



98 The Spell of Tlanders 

quickly turned into a rout. Even the proud 
Archduke had to seek safety in flight, and the 
day, which had begun so auspiciously, ended in 
one of the greatest disasters of the disastrous 
war. 

Nieuport and its sister cities in this, until 
lately, half-forgotten corner of Flanders were, 
in former times, renowned for other contests 
happily less bloody than these famous battles. 
Here, during the Middle Ages, flourished a 
group of societies devoted to rhetoric. In 
place of the still more ancient tourneys, where 
armed knights fought with lance and sword, 
these '' Chambers of Rhetoric " held annual 
contests of oratory. From one end of Flanders 
to the other the movement spread; and these 
debating societies did much to cultivate a re- 
gard for learning and dialectic skill among the 
mass of the population. Sternly suppressed 
by Alva, implacable foe of every form of free 
thought, these societies were revived after the 
Spanish scourge was withdrawn, and some of 
them continue to the present day. 

The visitor who wandered around the long, 
slightly hilly streets of the Nieuport of last 
July would have had little trouble in locating 
plenty of the " monuments " of its famous past, 
although the beach has now receded two or three 




TOWER OF THE TEMPLARS, NIEUPORT. 



Nieuport and the Yser Canal 99 

miles to the northward and pleasant fields ex- 
tend along the edge of the wide marshes which 
then were probably part of the sea. A curious 
old lighthouse with a pointed tower stands 
about midway between the present town and 
Nieuport Bains, as the beach town is called, 
showing where the coastline lay some three 
hundred and fifty years ago. Even this spot is 
now too far inland for the light to be seen at 
sea and a new lighthouse has been built on the 
rampart of dunes that runs, like a miniature 
mountain range, almost to Ostende toward the 
east, and westward to Coxyde and beyond. 

Our first visit at Nieuport was to the Tower 
of the Templars, a huge square pile of brick 
standing in the midst of a potato patch. This 
prosaic environment detracted not a little from 
the sentimental interest of the edifice, and we 
were unable to get into the structure, although 
one of the gens d 'amies of the village was said 
to have a key to the low wooden door at its base. 
Equally disappointing was a visit to the ancient 
Halle aux Draps, or Cloth Hall, now used on 
certain days as a local butter market. Here 
again, the door was locked and no one seemed to 
know who had the key. Curiously enough, al- 
though situated very close to the French fron- 
tier, we found in this little town and its neigh- 



100 The Spell of Flanders 

bours, Dixmude and Furnes, very few people 
who understood French. Flemish is the uni- 
versal language hereabouts apparently, but it 
was only on this little trip that we were at all 
inconvenienced by our inability to speak it. 
Elsewhere in Flanders — even at Ypres and 
Audenaerde, where our friends said we would 
have trouble — we were able to make our French 
universally understood. 

On the Grande Place, close to the Cloth Hall, 
we found a little inn, called the Hotel du Peli- 
can, where the Professor proposed that we 
should get some liquid refreshment. We failed, 
however, to obtain any response to our raps and 
thumps on the door, and concluding that the es- 
tablishment must be run for pelicans only we 
took ourselves and our patronage elsewhere. 
The Church of Notre Dame, which stands just 
off the Grande Place, we found to be a most 
quaint and interesting old structure dating, it 
is said, from the thirteenth century. While less 
imposing externally than St. Nicholas at Furnes 
its massive square baroque tower was very 
striking, and formed a fine picture in con- 
junction with the more slender tower of 
the Cloth Hall hard by. The approach to 
the main entrance of the church was be- 
neath some lofty trees and we did not see 



Nieuport and the Yser Canal 101 

a solitary liuman being either outside of the 
edifice or within it. This church has an inter- 
esting jube or rood loft, a fine wooden pulpit, 
and we also noticed a curious winding stairway 
that seemed to lead upward within one of the 
pillars at the intersection of the transept and 
the choir. As the tower is not built at this 
point, but at one end of the edifice, it was quite 
a mystery where this stairway went and what 
its purpose might be, but as it seemed exceed- 
ingly narrow and dark we did not explore it, 
nor did we find any one to whom we could apply 
for information about it. 

It was in this church, by the way, or possibly 
in one of those at Dixmude or Fumes, that the 
Madame developed a violent antipathy to a cer- 
tain painting that seems to be one of the most 
cherished possessions of nearly every church in 
Flanders. As old Cotton and Increase Mather 
delighted in scaring and harrowing their au- 
diences with word pictures of the tortures of 
the burning fiery pit, so nearly every old Flem- 
ish artist seems to have delighted in portraying 
most vividly the sufferings and martyrdoms of 
the saints, and one subject in particular appears 
to have caught the fancy of every one of them. 
This was the beheading of John the Baptist. 
At times the head is shown rolling in the dust 



102 The Spell of Flanders 

or mire of the street, at times it is represented 
as being served on a platter — but to one and 
all of these works of art the Madame objected. 
This circumstance added not a little to the hap- 
piness of Mr. and Mrs. Professor, who were con- 
tinually contriving to lead her artfully around 
to inspect some new wonder, which proved to be 
another representation of this agreeable scene. 
As works of art they were nearly all atrocities, 
but as jokes on the Madame they were one and 
all great successes, and it was really surprising 
how many of them there were. 

The Hotel de Ville, a somewhat commonplace 
looking structure, is said to contain a small col- 
lection of paintings, but we were unable to make 
any of the phlegmatic gens d'armes whom we 
found lounging close by take enough interest in 
our questions to inforai us where admission 
might be obtained. In fact the whole town 
seemed singularly uninterested in tourists, ap- 
parently caring not a bit whether they came or 
stayed away. While the war will undoubtedly 
change this, still any one desiring to visit it will 
do well to make the trip from Ostende or Furnes, 
returning for the night to some point where 
hotel accommodations are more adequate. In 
our case we went over to Ostende, where there 
are many good hotels. No doubt a pleasant 



Nieuport and the Yser Canal 103 

week or month could be spent in this corner of 
Flanders, but for such a stay the best plan 
would be to go to one of the many little seaside 
resorts between Coxyde and Ostende for one's 
hotel or pension, and explore the hinterland 
from there. 

The ride by the little cJiemin de fer vicinal 
from Nieuport to Ostende is a very interesting 
one. At the outset the line crosses the huge 
locks that join the canals to Ostende and Furnes 
with the tidal river Yser. There are seven or 
eight bridges in all, the different canals and 
channels being separated by tiny islands. Had 
Madame Thebes only suggested that we explore 
the Yser Canals while we were there last July 
how much more interesting this part of the book 
would be! Unfortunately they looked then 
much as hundreds of other Belgian canals had 
looked and we gave them only a passing glance. 
While the newspapers in their accounts of the 
great battle of Flanders usually spoke of the 
Yser Canal as though there was but a single 
canal, in reality there are three canals that flow 
into the tiny Yser River at this point. One of 
these runs parallel with the coast to Ostende, 
and then onward to Bruges and beyond ; the sec- 
ond runs behind the range of dunes westward to 
Furnes, where it divides and crosses the French 



104 The Spell of Flanders 

frontier in two branches, one going to Bergues 
and the other to Dunkerque. It is the third 
branch that achieved immortality in the Battle 
of Flanders. This runs straight inland, at right 
angles to the other two, following the tortuous 
channel of the old river much of the way to Dix- 
mude. A short distance beyond Dixmude the 
canal ceases to follow the Eiver Yser, which here 
flows eastward from a source well across the 
French boundary, and ascends the Yser's 
smaller tributary, the Yperlee, to Ypres. It did 
not seem like very much of an obstacle from a 
military standpoint, but brave hearts can make 
the most of a small advantage. Below the big 
locks the little river runs in its own bed to the 
sea. Here the tide was out the day of our visit 
and a few small fishing boats were lying tipped 
over sideways in the mud, while two or three 
English ladies were busily sketching the not 
over-picturesque scene. There will be a great 
many people sketching in this vicinity by and 
by! 

About two miles from Nieuport the train 
passes the church of Lombartzyde, within which 
is a statue of the Virgin known among mariners 
far and wide as the Bonne Mere de Lom- 
hartzyde, and who is devoutly believed able 
to protect the faithful seaman from perils by 



Nieuport and the Yser Canal 105 

sea, to aid tlie farmer in Ms harvest, to cure 
the sick and succour the distressed. Many are 
the little ships, patiently carved by fingers 
hardened by toil and exposure, that have been 
reverently hung before the good Virgin's shrine. 
There are perhaps fewer now than formerly, 
but faith in her protection and power is still 
strong and will probably always continue to be 
so, for the Flemings are intensely loyal to the 
church. 

Not a few of those who visit these little towns, 
rich in mementoes of the past, but otherwise 
apparently very sleepy and dull, wonder what 
the inhabitants do for amusement. No one who 
has ever spent a Sunday in a Belgian country 
village need ask this question. From one end of 
the country to the other, in the Borinage or 
mining provinces of the southwest as well as in 
the Flemish counties of the north, the male pop- 
ulation devotes the greater part of the day to 
what may unhesitatingly be termed the Belgian 
national sport — archery. In the early part of 
the Middle Ages Flemish archers were as fa- 
mous as the longbowmen of Merrie England, 
and on many a hard fought field they gave a 
good account of themselves. Curiously enough, 
the archery societies into which they formed 
themselves for practice have survived all the 



106 The Spell of Flanders 

wars and changes of the centuries, have con- 
tinued in spite of the invention of gunpowder 
and the perfection of firearms — an industry in 
which Liege, in southern Belgium, has led all 
other cities — and seem to be as vital a part of 
the national life of the country as ever they 
were. The fact that the bow and arrow is an 
anachronism troubles your Belgian peasant not 
at all; he shoulders his long bow as cheerfully 
on a Sunday morning as if he were carrying the 
latest model of smokeless powder repeater, with 
Maxim silencer and all modern improvements, 
instead of a weapon that was out of date and 
useless five hundred years ago. 

As practised in Belgium, archery contests are 
carried on in two ways. There is first what is 
known as the Tir a Voiseau or Perche. In 
the centre of the village green of the smaller 
towns, and in some open space in the surburbs 
of the larger places, the traveller cannot fail to 
notice what looks like a flag pole, the top of 
which, however, tapers to a slender point, from 
just beneath which four short arms point up- 
ward diagonally, while three cross arms are 
placed horizontally below them. On these are 
fixed the oiseaux, or birds — blocks of cork 
covered with tinsel or gaily-coloured paper, 
each with a tuft of feathers stuck at the top. 



Nieuport and the Yser Canal 107 

The archers gather below the pole and shoot 
upward, aiming at the ' ' birds ' ' and endeavour- 
ing to knock them off cleanly. Each shoots in 
turn, and the prizes — which have been duly an- 
nounced by posters for days beforehand — go to 
those capturing one of the '' birds," the value, 
varying according to its position. In the 
contests entitled " Tir du Roi/' the archer 
bringing down the last bird wins the largest 
prize and is called the "Roi," or King, and as 
by that time the archers have one and all con- 
sumed a goodly portion of their favourite bever- 
ages there is general hilarity — especially if the 
victor is a popular favourite. Immemorial cus- 
tom decrees that the King should deal liberally 
with his subjects and dispense in libations 
whatever sum he may have gained as a prize, 
after which he is usually escorted, or if neces- 
sary carried, home in great state with a band in 
advance and all the members of the contest fol- 
lowing in a disorderly, but jolly, crowd. 

The second form of contest is known as the 
" Tir au herceau/' and consists of shooting at 
a target. The birds, in this case, are fastened 
about the bull's eye. The archers stand at a 
distance of one hundred metres from the target, 
which is usually placed at the rear of a walled 
court or garden. Generally a series of wooden 



108 The Spell of Flanders 

arches placed at intervals along the line of fire 
serve to arrest any arrows that go wild, while 
the back of the target is reinforced strongly 
with straws about a foot long laid lengthwise 
with the line of the shooting and packed under 
great pressure. There is invariably a public 
cafe or estaminet attached to the places where 
archery contests au herceau are conducted, 
while such places are always found close by the 
spot where a Tir a I'oiseau takes place. 
Between shots the men consume liberal quan- 
tities of Iambic, faro, or the beer of some neigh- 
bouring brewer, and discuss politics or the 
news of the day. A circumstance that renders 
disorders comparatively rare is that each 
archery society consists of men of a single 
party. The Catholics have their favourite 
places that are patronised exclusively by Cath- 
olics, while the Socialists in the southern prov- 
inces, where that party is strong, have their 
own societies and places of rendezvous. The 
clergy are heartily interested in the Catholic 
contests, giving liberal prizes and attending in 
considerable numbers "to cheer the victors and 
console the vanquished. 

During the early part of the war numerous 
references were made in the despatches to the 
marvellous accuracy of the Belgian riflemen. 



Nieuport and the Yser Canal 109 

To one who lias attended scores of these 
archeiy contests it is not surprising that the 
Belgians are good shots. Out of date though 
the bow and arrow is, yet the sport cannot fail 
to train the eye and hand, and constant rivalry 
in such a pastime has made the Belgians liter- 
ally a nation of sharpshooters. On one occa- 
sion the writer and a friend took a couple of 
shots with a carbine in one of the little shoot- 
ing galleries that accompanied a village ker- 
messe. We both missed. A young man stand- 
ing by, who worked in the village sugar mill, 
politely asked which of the various pipes and 
other objects we were aiming at. We indicated 
one of them and, zip! his bullet had shattered 
it. Half a dozen shots in quick succession at 
different objects we pointed out proved equally 
accurate. It was an exhibition of marksman- 
ship such as one frequently sees on the stage 
in the United States, but being made by a 
casual bystander .in a village street it was most 
impressive. Nor was the lad, as I took pains 
to inquire, noted particularly for his skill in 
this direction — having seldom won prizes in 
the official contests. 

All ages join in this sport, the small boys 
erecting diminutive poles in the fields around 
the villages, where they imitate their elders 



110 The Spell of Flanders 

with toy bows and arrows, while men of seventy 
or eighty take their turn with beardless youths 
in the prize competitions. While I was visiting 
in the Borinage two years ago the uncle of my 
hostess shouldered his two-metre bow and 
started off to a '^ meet " despite his eighty- 
seven years. What is more, his hand had lost 
none of its strength and firmness, and his eyes 
none of their keenness, for twice while I was 
present he brought down one of the '' birds," 
and I later learned that he had won one of the 
principal prizes. Only the year before he had 
been crowned ' ' King ' ' at one such contest, and 
the first time he ever won that coveted honour 
was when he was sixteen — or seventy-one 
years before. I doubt whether there is any 
athletic game in the world of which the devotees 
can point to a longer record of success. 

This fine old athlete had two brothers older 
than himself alive at the time, the combined 
ages of the three aggregating two hundred and 
eighty years. One of them, aged ninety-four, 
recently expressed some anxiety as to what 
would become of him in the event of the death 
, of the daughter with whom he was living. 

'' What will I do if Amelie should die? " he 
asked of one of his other daughters. 

'< Why, papa, then you would come and live 



Nieuport and the Yser Canal 111 

with me," she replied, adding with a flash of 
characteristic Belgian humour, " and when I 
am dead you'll go to live with Felicienne " (a 
grand-daughter still in her 'teens). As this 
provided safely for his future for at least an- 
other fifty years, the old gentleman was greatly 
relieved, feeling perhaps that if he survived 
Felicienne her children would by that time be 
old enough to take care of him. 

While archery is everywhere the dominating 
pastime of the working class it is by no means 
the only form of popular amusement. The bi- 
cycle has not yet gone out of vogue in Belgium, 
and societies exist in hundreds of cities and 
communes for the encouragement of bicycle 
racing. The day of our arrival in the village 
where Tante Eosa spread for us the banquet 
mentioned in the second chapter, we were so 
fortunate as to witness the final sprint of a 
twenty-five kilometre race. A score of con- 
testants had pedalled ten times over a course 
consisting for the most part of roadways paved 
with ragged cobble-stones, the rest being dirt 
roads filled with mud puddles owing to a recent 
rain. The riders, as they rushed by, were 
literally covered with mud and had evidently 
struggled hard to gain one of the five prizes 
which aggregated, as we afterwards learned, 



112 The Spell of Flanders 

the munificent sum of eighty francs, sixteen 
dollars, of which the winner received thirty — 
six dollars! 

Another favourite form of recreation is the 
racing of pigeons, and societies for the promo- 
tion of this sport exist in every part of the 
Kingdom. Frequently the birds fly from one 
end of the country to the other and many ex- 
amples of remarkable speed have been re- 
ported, the wimiers bringing comparatively 
high prices: 

No better idea of the variety of popular 
amusements can be given than to take the pro- 
gramme of one little commune that I had an 
opportunity of copying, entitled " Fetes Com- 
munales de 1914" — this announcement being 
printed in French and Flemish. While many 
of the events were evidently organised by vari- 
ous societies the officials of the commune as- 
sumed responsibility for the proper conduct of 
the contests, and either provided the prizes or 
contributed a substantial sum toward them, the 
rest being raised by a fee exacted from each 
contestant which varied from one franc, thirty 
centimes for the smaller events to five francs for 
the more important ones. With one hundred 
contestants this would yield one hundred and 
thirty francs, to which the commune usually 



Nieuport and the Yser Canal 113 

added fifty, making one hundred and eighty 
francs available in all. For the chief events 
the prizes aggregate 1,000 to 2,000 francs — 
quite a respectable sum for a commune of six 
thousand inhabitants. The difference between 
archery contests au herceau and a la percJie has 
already been explained. The programme, 
much abbreviated, follows : 

Suii., Apr. 19. — Archery contests, both au berceau and 
perche. 

Sun., Apr. 26. — Archery contest, au berceau, and rifle 
contest (carbmes). 

Fri., May 1. — Fete du Travail (Labor Day) Archery 
contest and popular ball on a public 
square in the evening — dancing in 
the street, rain or shine. 

Sun., May 10. — Rifle contest. 

Thurs., May 

21. — Archery contest. 

Sun., May. 24. — Annual Fair with archery contests of 
both kinds, rifle contest and gTand 
concert in evening with two bands. 

Sun., May 31. — Kermesse, with archery contests of both 
kinds and a popular out-door ball in 
the evening. 

Sun., June 7. — Bicycle Race — outdoor course around 
the village ten times, 25 kilometres. 

Sun., June 14. — Archery contest au berceau and Tir du 
Roi (perche). 

Sun., June 21. — Kermesse in another quarter of the com- 
mune, with rifle contest and concert in 
evening, followed by popular ball. 



114 The Spell of Flanders 

Sun. to Tues., 

July 5, 6, 7, — Annual Kemiesse in the centre of the 
commune, with archery contest (perche) 
on Sunday, au berceau on Monday, and 
Tir du Eoi with public games and 
sports on Tuesday, Itinerant amuse- 
ment enterprises of all kinds make 
these annual kermesses a miniature 
Coney Island while they last. 
Sun., July 26. — Tir du Roi and Grand Fete Gymnastique, 
followed by concert. Fete de Nuit and 
a ball. 
Sun., Aug. 9. — Fete d'Enfauce, distribution of prizes to 
school children with public exhibition 
of school gymnastics, etc. 
Sat. and Sun., 
Aug. 15 and 

16. — Kermesse in a third quarter, with arch- 

ery contests and concert. 
Sun. Mon. and 
Tues., Aug. 

30 to Sept. 1. — Annual Kermesse, with archery contests 
of both kinds, concert and sports and 
games. 
Sun., Sept. 20. — Archeiy au berceau and rifle contest. 
Sun., Oct. 25. — Same. 
Sim., Nov. 21. — Archeiy, perche. 
Smi., Dec. 13. — Rifle contest. 

It must be confessed that this progranune is 
somewhat monotonous, but in the larger towns 
it is considerably amplified and varied. Still 
to one who was brought up in a small country 
village in New Hampshire it seems very good, 



Nieuport and the Yser Canal 115 

both as an evidence of the popular desire for 
healthy and rational ont-door enjoyment, and 
of the disposition of the Grovernment to pro- 
mote and foster legitimate amusements of all 
kinds. The kermesse is an European rather 
than a Belgian institution and requires no de- 
scription further than that it is a jolly good 
time for everybody. It has existed in Flan- 
ders and throughout the Walloon provinces 
from time immemorial, as ancient paintings 
and still more ancient historical references con- 
clusively show. Its most interesting feature to 
the American visitor is the night dancing out 
of doors on the rough cobble-stones of the town 
square or on the soft grass of the village green. 
Lighted by flaring gas torches, or sometimes 
only by the moon and such stray beams as fall 
on the dancers from the open doors and win- 
dows of adjacent cafes, the spectacle of the 
gaily dancing couples carries the observer back 
to the days when the world was young, and 
love and laughter and happiness reigned su- 
preme. 




CHAPTER VII 

WHEN YPRES WAS A GEEATER CITY THAN LONDON 

?S we returned from our trip to Dixmude, 
Furnes and Nieuport, the Professor an- 
nounced that our next destination would 
he Ypres. If he had said that it would be 
Chingwangtao, or the Comoro Archipelago, the 
ladies could hardly have stared at him more 
blankly. They had never heard of it. Since 
October the whole world has heard of it, and 
the name of the all but forgotten old town is 
familiar to every schoolboy — and will continue 
so for generations to come. The record of our 
visit that follows was written amid the pleasant 
and peaceful scenes that it describes. When 
we were there the swans were swimming majes- 
tically in the waters of the moat that still sur- 
rounded the remnants of the old city walls, but 
we were told that for military purposes all this 
was obsolete. No doubt it was, but the brave 
old town was none the less able — with the help 
of its stubborn English defenders — to with- 
stand the most furious, determined and bloody 

116 



When Ypres was Greater than London 117 

assaults in all history. To the German host 
the mediaeval term la morte d' Ypres was re- 
vived in those awful weeks of October and 
November, 1914, for the grim, low-lying ram- 
parts of the town meant death to countless 
thousands. 

Whether anything whatever is still standing 
of the old structures described in this chapter 
it is at present impossible to say. The British 
trenches were under a well-nigh continuous 
storm of shells for many weeks, and the town 
itself must undoubtedly have suffered severely. 
Late in November it was reported that the 
old Cloth Hall had been destroyed by the furi- 
ous German bombardment, or, at least, severely 
injured. The account of the various points of 
interest in the famous old town as they ap- 
peared in peaceful June — together with some 
brief sketches of its former greatness — may 
be all the more interesting now that its ruins 
lie in the lime-light of the world's attention. 
As compared with the half-dozen tourists that 
averaged to visit Ypres each day before the 
war the return of peace will see it become the 
Mecca for daily thousands. To these the re- 
mains of the town itself should vie in interest 
with the trenches of the famous battle-fields of 
the Great War, for during a period two or 



118 The Spell of Flanders 

three times as long as the entire duration of 
the nation known as the United States of Amer- 
ica, Ypres was one of the greatest and richest 
cities in the world. 

It was hard to believe it, however, as we rum- 
bled into the railroad station and, stepping out 
upon the almost deserted platform, took our 
first look at the place. As is usually the case 
in Flanders, the train deposits the visitor some 
distance from the centre of the town. The 
very first view was full of delight and promise 
of better things in store, however, for as we 
emerged from the station we found ourselves 
facing a pretty little park or square on the op- 
posite side of which we could see a bit of the 
ancient city walls which stretched away toward 
the right most invitingly. 

Postponing the pleasure of inspecting these 
renowned ramparts till a later occasion, we 
made our way through narrow winding streets 
direct to the Grande Place, pausing now and 
then to admire the quaint gabled houses on the 
rue au Beurre (Butter Street). At the Grande 
Place the Professor led us directly to the huge 
Cloth Hall, which completely fills one side of 
it, for here — he said — we would find the best 
introduction to the history and romance of the 
city. The concierge proved hard to find, and 



When Ypres was Greater than London 119 

we wandered up-stairs and through a deserted 
corridor, trying several doors that proved all 
to be locked, before we located the familiar 
sign. Our fees being duly paid — fifty cen- 
times each, which was little enough for the 
privilege of inspecting the finest monument of 
its kind in Flanders, or for that matter in all 
Europe — one of the doors was obligingly un- 
locked and we found ourselves immediately in 
the great Gruild Hall. 

The Halle aux Draps, or Cloth Hall, is the 
largest civil edifice in Belgium, and without 
doubt one of the largest in the world. It is four 
hundred and thirty-three feet long by more than 
two hundred in width — or larger than Madi- 
son Square Garden. Its huge bulk, and that 
of the former cathedral hard by, contrast 
strangely with the present dimensions of the 
little city. Yet when they were built Ypres was 
the powerful rival of Bruges and Ghent, then 
at the apex of their glory, and one of the fore- 
most cities in the world. The Cloth Hall was 
begun in 1200 and completed in 1304, or two 
years after the Battle of the Spurs, a victory 
won by the guildsmen of Ypres and Bruges 
against the chivalry of France. During that 
period the city had two hundred thousand in- 
habitants, its woollen weavers operated four 



120 The Spell of Flanders 

thousand looms, and more tlian four hun- 
dred guilds responded to the calls to arms that 
sounded, at frequent intervals, from the belfry. 
The greatest wonder of the edifice is the im- 
mense gallery, or hall, which occupies the side 
next to the Grande Place. This extends for 
the entire length of the building, broken only 
by the belfry in the centre which forms a sort 
of transept across it. In height it reaches clear 
to the roof, the huge roof beams forming its 
ceiling. There is a veritable forest of these, 
massive, sturdy, and as perfect as the day they 
were hewed from the fair oaks of the country- 
side roundabout. The concierge will not fail to 
tell you, if you pause to admire this majestic 
timber-work of six hundred years ago, that 
from that day to this no spider has ever spun 
its web there — nor is any spider ever seen. 
Like the story of the snakes in Ireland, it would 
be a big pity to spoil this by finding one and 
pointing it out — one must needs be a good run- 
ner to do it, and be very sure which road leads 
to the railway station, for it might go hard with 
him — but we could not see any the day we 
were there. In fact, the legend has been re- 
peated by many writers since the sixteenth cen- 
tury and is now such a matter of local pride that 
no doubt the concierge who permitted one to 



When Ypres was Greater than London 121 

get in and set up housekeeping in this spider- 
less Eden — for it certainly must look like the 
Promised Land to a spider — would not only 
lose his or her job, but be severely punished by 
the indignant city fathers into the bargain. 

Looking at the Cloth Hall from across the 
Grande Place it has the aspect of being a low 
building, but within this gallery one gains pre- 
cisely an opposite impression — of unusual 
loftiness. Just how high the vast room is can 
best be estimated by noting the wooden facade 
of an ancient house that has been taken down 
and erected against one wall in its entirety. 
With its three stories and high peaked top this 
structure appears to be literally lost, looking 
like an undersized pea in an extra big pod. 
The great inner walls of the main gallery, fac- 
ing the windows that look out upon the Grande 
Place, have been decorated by modern frescoes 
of great historical and artistic interest painted 
by two artists of widely different methods and 
ideals. The portion into which one first enters, 
extending to the break formed by the tower, 
was decorated by Ferdinand Pauwels, Director 
of the Eoyal Academy of Dresden. Both the 
art critics, and those who make no pretence to 
superior knowledge in such matters, agree that 
this work has been magnificently done. The 



122 The Spell of Flanders 

vastness of the wall spaces made it possible to 
paint the pictures on a scale of size and with a 
wealth of detail surpassing the fine frescoes of 
the Hotel de Ville at Bruges and the general ef- 
fect upon the beholder is impressive in the ex- 
treme. The pictures represent notable events 
in the town's history down to the fourteenth 
century, and were begun in 1872 and completed 
in 1881. The subjects selected by the artist are 
as follows: 

1. — Visit of Count Philip of Alsace to the Hospital of 

Oiir Lady in 1187. 
2. — Count Ferdinand of Portugal orders the Magistrates 

to fortify the town in 1214. 
3. — Countess Jeanne of Constantinople setting prisoners 

free on Good Friday, 1206. 
4. — 5. — The Magistrates give the Countess Margaret the 

ransom of her son William, who was made prisoner 

during the 7th Ciaxsade. 
6. — Building the West wing of the Guild Hall in the time 

of Guy of Dampierre, 1285. 
7. — 8. — Return of the armed forces of Ypres in 1302 

after the Battle of the Spurs. 
9. — The Plague, known as la Morte d' Ypres, in 1347. 
10. — 11. — Banquet offered in this very hall to Mahaut, 

Countess of Flanders, and Matthew, Duke of Lor- 
raine on their marriage in 1314. 
12. — An episode of the siege of Ypres by the English 

and the men of Ghent in 1383. 

As will be noted, the pictures are not ar- 
ranged in exact chronological order, but, taken 



When Ypres was Greater than London 123 

together, they form a wonderful pictorial sum- 
mary of the city's history — down to the Fall 
of 1914, which merits a separate gallery by it- 
self. To us the most impressive of the series 
was the vast picture in two sections showing 
the triumphant return from the Battle of Cour- 
trai and the tragic representation of the Black 
Death, which swept through all the densely 
populated Flemish towns; but was more de- 
structive at Ypres than elsewhere. The visita- 
tion here represented was by no means the only 
one in the city's history, and for centuries la 
morte d' Ypres was a name of terror through- 
out the countryside. 

In the section of the Great Hall beyond the 
beKry the mural paintings are the work of 
Louis Delbeke, a painter of Ypres. His pic- 
tures were the subject of violent criticism when 
they were first exhibited, and are entirely un- 
like those in the other portion of the chamber. 
The artist endeavoured to give his work an ar- 
chaic appearance, in keeping with the antiquity 
of its surroundings, and it was his intention to 
symbolise the various manifestations of the 
public life of the city — Civic Freedom, Com- 
merce, Industry, Charities, Literature and so 
on. The work was interrupted by his death 
and has never been completed. 



124 The Spell of Flanders 

Another room of great interest is the Salle 
Echevinale, where for five centuries the magis- 
trates of Ypres held their sessions. Between 
1322 and 1468 local artists painted on the wall 
above the three Gothic arches in this room a 
frieze comprising portraits of the early Counts 
and Countesses of Flanders, beginning with 
Louis of Nevers and ending with Charles the 
Bold. When the French occupied the town in 
1794 they covered these " emblems of supersti- 
tion and portraits of tyrants ' ' with a thick coat 
of whitewash wliich was only accidentally 
knocked off in 1844, exposing a bit of the an- 
cient and still brilliantly coloured painting. 
The discovery created quite a sensation, as the 
very existence of this work had been forgotten, 
and a native artist was commissioned to remove 
the whitewash and restore the paintings, which 
he did in a manner that is not entirely satisfac- 
tory, but none the less gives us an opportunity 
to view once more this interesting work — one 
of the earliest pieces of mural painting in Flan- 
ders. On the north wall of this room is a mod- 
ern fresco by Godefroid Guffens, representing 
" The State Entry of Philip the Bold " in 1384, 
while on the other side of the room is a monu- 
mental Flemish chimney-piece carved by Mal- 
fait of Brussels, with mural paintings on each 



When Ypres was Greater than London 125 

side by Jean Swerts — like Guff ens, a painter 
of the modern Antwerp school. These repre- 
sent the Magistrates of Ypres issuing an order 
regarding the maintenance of the poor, in 1515 ; 
and the visit of the Magistrates to one of the 
Free Schools founded in 1253 — thus illustrat- 
ing the early interest taken by the commune in 
free education and public charities. 

Leaving this interesting building we went 
across a small roughly paved square to the 
Church of St. Martin, which dates from the 
thirteenth century, and was for many centuries 
a cathedral. The unfinished square tower was 
erected in 1433. The choir is Eomano-ogival, 
while the nave and aisles are early Gothic, and 
the edifice has many other peculiar features of 
interest to students of architecture. It con- 
tains the usual paintings, of which none are of 
remarkable interest, and some excellent choir 
stalls. The most famous of the Bishop;s of 
St. Martin, while it was a Cathedral Church, 
was Jansenius, one of the leading figures in the 
Beformation, who died of the Plague in 1638. 
His great work on St. Augustine occupied twen- 
ty-two years of his life while at Ypres and 
caused a tremendous discussion. It was finally 
declared to be heretical, but its teachings had 
already given rise to an ardent group of fol- 



126 The Spell of Flanders 

lowers of tlie learned Flemish cliurchnian, who 
were called Jansenists. The archives of the 
city and church contain much interesting ma- 
terial regarding this celebrated mediaeval theo- 
logian. His tomb, which still stands in the 
church of which he was once the head, formerly 
contained a long and highly eulogistic inscrip- 
tion, which, by an order from the Pope in 1655, 
was cut down to the bare remnant that still re- 
mains. 

The Grande Place of Ypres is another of the 
surprises that this tiny city has to offer to those 
unacquainted with its history, for it is one of 
the largest in all Flanders — a veritable Sa- 
hara of a Place on a hot summer day, albeit 
a Sahara bordered with many pleasant oases 
where cooling drinks, if they do not bubble up 
from the ground, can at least be had without 
much difficulty. During most of the week the 
vast paved space is almost deserted, save for 
an occasional peasant's cart that rumbles 
slowly and clumsily across it, but on market- 
days it is full of picturesque and swarming life. 
Then the peasants come in from the country- 
side by the thousand, while the itinerant huck- 
sters and pedlars who, in Belgium travel from 
one fair or market-place to another, set up 
their canvas-covered booths in long streets 



When Ypres was Greater than London 127 

from one side of the Grande Place to the other. 
The country people press along between these 
rows of tiny shops and haggle energetically 
with the proprietors for whatever takes their 
fancy. An astounding variety of wares are of- 
fered for sale on these market days — dress 
goods of every description in the great Cloth 
Hall, which for a brief moment reflects a feeble 
glimmer of its ancient glory; ready-made gar- 
ments for man, woman and child; footwear, 
headwear, and every conceivable kind of hard- 
ware, of tinware, of crockery. In short, the 
display is a veritable department store, for the 
most part cheap stutf, it is true, but now and 
then one runs across laces for which the prices 
asked are quite high. Then, of course, there is 
the inevitable array of everything possible to 
eat — from the butchers ' stalls in the basement 
of the Cloth Hall to the huckster selling live 
chickens from a bag on the corner, and the 
scores of stands selling fruits and vegetables 
of every seasonable variety. 

At last, however, the market comes to an end, 
the hucksters and market gardeners take down 
their booths and drive away in their heavy 
Flemish carts ; the country people, after a more 
or less protracted visit to the places of refresh- 
ment around the Place and in the adjacent 



128 The SpeU of Flanders 

streets, go homeward, and the Grande Place 
settles down again into its sleep of centuries. 
While we were there the moon was at its full, 
and as its white light fell upon the grass-grown 
Place and the huge grey mass of the Cloth Hall 
it was not hard to picture the old days come 
back again and review, in fancy, some of the 
stirring times that the old houses around it 
have looked down upon. The great bell in the 
Cloth Hall tower rings and from far and wide 
come hurrying throngs of sturdy artisans, 
with their lances, pikes and clubs. The Ser- 
ments, or oath-bound corporations, take their 
positions gravely and in good order — men of 
substance these, portly, well-fed, and prosper- 
ous. Then the Metiers, or lesser crafts- 
men, assemble — no doubt more noisily and 
boisterously, as would be expected from their 
rougher class and lower breeding. Each of the 
four hundred guilds assembles around its re- 
spective banner, the Count and others of the no- 
bility come riding up ; and with them, on terms 
of full equality, the commanders of the citizen 
soldiery confer. Then, as the trumpets sound, 
or mayhap the great bell peals again, the hosts 
march off in serried ranks to the city gates, or 
to take their positions along the walls. The old 
streets echo to the sound of their tramping feet, 



When Ypres was G-reater than London 129 

the noise of tlieir shouts and cries dies away, 
and once more the still moonlight falls upon the 
deserted old Place. 

As we sat in one of the cafes facing the Cloth 
Hall, our minds filled with these and other fan- 
cies of the olden days — the moonlight, the old 
houses all around us, and the many quaint and 
ancient things we had seen during the day all 
contributing to the dreamy sense of enchant- 
ment — the Professor told us something of the 
legend and history of that far-off thirteenth 
century when much of the Ypres we had seen 
that day was built. It was an age when men 
firmly believed in magic and fairies and de- 
lighted in tales of mystery and enchantment. 
Some of the most famous stories told by the old 
Flemish chroniclers relate to the career of Bald- 
win IX, who came to be known as Baldwin of 
Constantinople. After the long and wise 
reigns of Dierick of Alsace and his son Philip, 
Flanders had become one of the richest and 
most prosperous countries in Europe. The 
French, who looked upon its fertile plains and 
fair cities with covetous eyes, composed these 
lines, which no doubt expressed their sincere 
conviction : 

" La plus belle Comte est La Flandre, 
La plus belle Duehe est La Bourgogne, 
La plus belle Royaume est France." 



130 The Spell of Flanders 

Baldwin was not only Count of Flanders, but 
also Count of Hainaut, of which Mons was the 
capital — his dominions therefore extending 
from the North Sea to the Eiver Meuse and in- 
cluding much of the Ardennes. It was in this 
region — the true fairy-land of Belgium — that 
the Count met with an adventure, according to 
certain of the chroniclers, which gave his reign 
a most sinister beginning. It happened in this 
wise. The Count was very fond of hunting, 
and very neglectful of the duty his loyal sub- 
jects felt that he owed to them — of getting 
married and securing children to insure the suc- 
cession. For nothing was more disastrous to a 
country than to have its line of princes die 
out, leaving their title to be fought for by all 
who felt themselves strong enough to seize it. 
The Count was to have married Beatrice of 
France, the most beautiful princess in Christen- 
dom, but to the neglect of this important matter 
he went hunting in the Ardennes, where from 
time immemorial the wild boars have been very 
large and fierce. 

Here, after a day of poor sport, the Count 
came upon a black boar of enormous strength 
which killed several of his dogs and even 
wounded one of his companions. Pursuing the 
savage beast eagerly the Count lost sight of his 



When Ypres was G-reater than London 131 

followers and when he finally brought it to bay 
he was alone. With a blow from his javelin 
he finally killed it, and then cut off its mon- 
strous head. As he paused to get his breath he 
heard a slight rustle in the bushes and there 
was the most beautiful lady he had ever seen, 
seated on a palfrey. Upon his inquiring who 
she was, and why she was there in the forest 
alone, she replied that she was an Eastern prin- 
cess and -had come to find and wed the richest 
Count in Christendom, adding that she had 
learned that the Count of Flanders was the no- 
blest lord in all the West, and it was therefore 
that Count for whom she was seeking. 

To this the Count, who had already fallen 
deeply in love with the beautiful stranger, 
whose dark eyes flashed upon him with a glance 
at once mysterious and entrancing, replied that 
he was the Count of Flanders and the richest 
Count under Heaven. He then and there pro- 
posed to the damsel, offering to marry her at 
once, nor did he perceive that the wild boar he 
had lately slain had disappeared, and even the 
blood of the battle was gone, while as for the 
huge head that he had cut off with his own 
hands the palfrey upon which the Eastern prin- 
cess was seated stood on the very spot. He 
then blew so loud a recall upon his horn that it 



132 The Spell of Flanders 

was lieard for miles through the great forest, 
and presently the lesser counts and knights who 
formed his train came riding up. To these he 
introduced the strange princess and, despite the 
prudent counsels of some that it might be well 
to learn more about the lady, he forthwith re- 
paired to Cambrai where they were married in 
great splendour. The Countess, beautiful as 
she was, did not become popular, the people at- 
tributing to her the heavy taxes they had to 
pay. It was also whispered that she never at- 
tended the elevation of the Host at mass, al- 
ways leaving before the bell was rung. 

Notwithstanding her unpopularity, and the 
gossip of the busybodies, the Count still 
loved his bride who bore him two children, 
Jeanne and Margaret, and ever remained as 
wonderfully beautiful as the day they first met 
in the forest. As they were celebrating Easter 
one year at Wynandael with a great feast a pil- 
grim arrived from the East with news that the 
Saracens were besieging Constantinople. He 
was forthwith invited into the great hall of the 
castle and food placed before him, which he ate 
eagerly. Just then the Countess entered, with 
a train of ladies. At sight of her the pilgrim 
stopped eating and trembled, while the Count- 
ess turned deadly pale and whispered to her 



When Ypres was Greater than London 133 

lord to send that stranger away as he was 
wicked and meant only evil by coming there. 
But the Count bade the pilgrim say whereat he 
was alarmed, whereupon the stranger rose and 
in a loud voice bade the devil who filled the 
body of the Countess to depart from it. At 
this the Countess rose and confessed she was 
indeed one of the devils cast out of Paradise 
who had inhabited the body of the most beauti- 
ful maiden of the East, the soul having de- 
parted from it. With this confession, at which 
all present were naturally appalled, she rose in 
all her beauty before them and vanished 
through a window of the hall, nor was she ever 
seen or heard of again. 

Other chroniclers and historians deny this 
story, pointing out that the Count was, in fact, 
happily married to Marie of Champagne and 
that it was the beautiful French Countess and 
no princess of satanic origin who bore his two 
daughters, Jeanne and Margaret. This, in 
truth, was the case, but many of the supersti- 
tious Flemings believed the tale about the devil 
none the less, and the Count's brilliant but 
tragic later career caused the story to be re- 
peated and handed down for many generations. 

Only five years . after coming to the throne 
Count Baldwin announced his intention of going 



134 The Spell of Flanders 

on a crusade, and in tlie presence of a vast 
throng both he and Marie took the cross in the 
church of St. Donatian at Bruges. This was in 
1199, but the Count was not able to leave his 
dominions at once and in the following year he 
and Marie came to Ypres to dedicate the foun- 
dation stone of the great Cloth Hall. He 
finally set out in 1203, but the Venetians com- 
pelled the crusaders, in payment for their pas- 
sage, to make a campaign which resulted in the 
capture of Constantinople, the founding of the 
Latin Empire, and the election of Count Bald- 
win as the first Emperor. Marie, meanwhile, 
had gone to Syria by another route and there 
she died of the plague, only learning in her last 
hour that her husband had become an Emperor 
and that she was an Empress. Her death was 
the first of the reverses of fortune in Baldwin's 
meteoric career. A year later, in 1205, he fell 
wounded in a battle before the walls of Adriano- 
ple — or, perhaps, slain. Certain it is that he 
disappeared from the world of men and for a 
space of twenty years was heard of no more. 

Then, in the heart of the great forest that 
in those days stretched from Tournai to Val- 
enciennes, some wood-cutters found a long 
bearded, white-haired old man, his face covered 
with scars, living the life of a hermit in a hut 



When Ypres was Greater than London * 135 

none of tliem remembered ever having seen be- 
fore. Gradually this wonder attracted more 
and more of the people thereabout to see the 
stranger, and men began to say that he resem- 
bled the good Count Baldwin. Some of the 
nobles who had known the Count heard of it, 
visited the hut in the forest, and declared that 
this was indeed Count Baldwin and the Em- 
peror. 

If he was the Count his country needed him 
sorely, for the King of France, Philip Augus- 
tus, had during his twenty years' absence all 
but made Flanders a French province. When 
it became clear that Baldwin was either dead or 
a prisoner of the pagans Philip had seized his 
two daughters — Jeanne being then a girl of 
fourteen, and Margaret still in her cradle — 
claiming their wardship as the dead Count's 
suzerain. Five years he kept them, nor did he 
permit them to return till he had married 
Jeanne to a kinsman of his own, Ferdinand of 
Portugal, who he thought would be a mere pup- 
pet in his hands. Ferdinand, however, proved 
to be a man of determination and resisted 
Philip's seizure of St. Omer and Aire, two 
Flemish towns. Philip invaded Flanders with 
a great army, capturing Cassel and destroying 
Damme and all the merchandise stored there, 



136 The Spell of Flanders 

Lille, Courtrai and many smaller towns. Fer- 
dinand, unable to resist the superior forces of 
Philip single-handed, brought about an alliance 
with King John of England. The battle of 
Bouvines shattered this alliance, and for twelve 
years Ferdinand languished in a French prison, 
while King John was forced to grant the Magna 
Carta to his English subjects. Thus a victory 
for tyranny in Flanders resulted indirectly 
in a greater victory for the cause of free- 
dom in England. Jeanne, while her husband 
was in prison, was the titular Countess of 
Flanders, but Philip kept her completely under 
the influence of his counsellors. Margaret, 
meanwhile, had been married, but her husband 
was unable to make head against the farrreach- 
ing power of the King of France. 

It was under these circumstances that the 
hermit who men thought resembled Count Bald- 
win came on the stage. If he was an impostor 
his coup was shrewdly planned, for Jeanne was 
as hated by the Flemings as her father had 
been loved. If he was really the good Count 
and the Emperor his arrival in Flanders 
seemed to that distracted country like a direct 
interposition of Providence. A great delega- 
tion from Valenciennes went out to the forest 
and hailed him as their Count and then he at 



When Ypres was Greater than London 137 

last admitted that he was indeed Baldwin of 
Constantinople. 

His tale was a strange one, but more easily 
believed in those wild days than it would be 
now. He had, he asserted, been wounded be- 
fore Adrianople and made a prisoner by the 
Bulgarians. While a captive a Bulgarian prin- 
cess saw him, fell in love, and contrived to ef- 
fect his escape after he had promised to marry 
her. Once free, however, he repented of his 
pledge to marry an infidel, and murdered his 
benefactress. This wicked deed was quickly 
followed by his recapture by the barbarians, 
who made him. a slave and even a beast of bur- 
den. Escaping at last, after many years, he 
had become a hermit in penance for his great 
sin. 

The men of Valenciennes believed this story, 
and pardoning his self-confessed crime as of lit- 
tle moment, since it affected only an infidel, pro- 
claimed him their Count. The great towns 
of Flanders flung open their gates to him wher- 
ever he went, and finally he held his court in 
Bruges. His neighbours, the Dukes of Bra- 
bant and Limbourg, and his former ally, the 
King of England, acknowledged his claims, 
while his daughter Jeanne fled to France for 
protection. 



138 The Spell of Flanders 

The chief reason for believing that Baldwin 
was an impostor is the fact that at this crisis 
of his career he failed signally to show any of 
the decision and judgment that twenty years be- 
fore had made the true Baldwin Emperor. To 
be sure, twenty years of slavery, and the haunt- 
ing memory of the beautiful Marie of Cham- 
pagne who had followed him to her death, and 
of the Bulgarian princess whom he had so basely 
slain, may have enfeebled his intellect. He was 
now an old man. At all events, after a period 
of indecision he did the very thing he never 
should have done — he appealed to Philip for 
aid against his daughter. Summoned to Pe- 
ronne, where the King of France was then 
holding court, he was subjected to a trial by the 
royal Council, which clearly showed its deter- 
mination to convict him as an impostor. Per- 
ceiving that he had blundered into a trap, the 
old man fled from the castle and escaped to 
Flanders. Here, however, the appeal to Philip 
and its result, together with much French gold 
judiciously expended in behalf of Jeanne, 
caused the nobility to turn cold. He deter- 
mined to lay his cause before the Pope, but 
while on his way to Rome was captured and 
sold to Jeanne who ordered him to be hanged 
in chains in the market-place at Lille between 



When Ypres was G-reater than London 139 

two hounds. If lie was the true Baldwin, after 
all, few careers in history offer wider contrasts 
of glory and shame. 

Whether one stays at Ypres a day or a week 
he will not lack for objects of interest, for the 
Cloth Hall and the Cathedral are but the be- 
ginning of the list. A day is hardly too much 
to devote to the rue de Lille alone, for here are 
the Hospice Belle, with a number of valuable 
old paintings, and the Hotel-Musee Merghe- 
lynck. The latter is an institution as unique 
as it is admirable. Built in 1774 by Frangois 
Merghelynck, a Treasurer and Grand Bailiff 
of Ypres, this fine mansion is filled with furni- 
ture and objets d'art of the eighteenth century 
coming from Flanders, Holland and France 
and collected with rare taste and judgment. 
In its entirety it represents the residence of a 
nobleman of the period, complete down to the 
smallest detail, with every article in its proper 
place, as if the owner had just stepped out and 
might be expected back at any moment. The 
seven principal rooms are panelled with carved 
wood. The dining-room is decorated with bas- 
reliefs representing all of the principal imple- 
ments of husbandry. These were carved by 
Antony Deledicque of Lille and have been com- 
pared with the work in some of the smaller 



140 The Spell of Flanders 

rooms in the Palace of Versailles. The music- 
room is similarly embellished with representa- 
tions of musical instruments, and all have fine 
panel friezes and gilded carvings. In each 
room the proprietor of the mansion, Arthur 
Merghelynck, the great-grandson of the orig- 
inal owner, has collected a complete equipment 
of eighteenth-century furniture. The dining- 
room has rare porcelain from Tournai, with 
the precious gilt marks of the choicest make, 
the music-room has an old-time harpsichord, 
the kitchen possesses an array of old-time pew- 
ter, copper and brassware. In the chambers 
the same plan has been faithfully carried out, 
even to placing the owner's uniforms and gala 
raiment in the wardrobes. Permission to visit 
these delightful rooms is freely granted to all 
visitors to Ypres without charge, other than an 
optional fee to the attendant. We were told 
that natives of the city are not admitted, but 
forgot to ask the caretaker if this was true. 

A little farther down this same rue de Lille 
is an old edifice that for many years has been 
called the House of the Templars. It has been 
restored and is now used as the Post Office — 
it was for a long time a brewery — but it is not 
now believed that this was ever the House of 
the famous mediaeval order. The Templars, 




CHURCH OF ST. PETER, YPRES. 



When Ypres was Greater than London 141 

however, did erect at Ypres their first house in 
Europe, and it may well be that this struc- 
ture was copied from it. Beyond this interest- 
ing edifice we encountered a grim-looking old 
church, that of St. Peter, within the doorway 
of which is a most curious mediaeval Calvary. 
This church is one of the oldest in Flanders, 
having been built in 1073 by Eobert the Frisian, 
one of the early Counts. On this street also 
stands the Hospice St. Jean which was founded 
in 1277. It contains one fine timbered ceiling 
room, with panelled walls, called the nuns' 
workroom, and some paintings by Kerel van 
Yper, an obscure local artist of the sixteenth 
century. 

In this section we were so fortunate as to see 
the lace workers, of whom there are still sev- 
eral hundred, making point de Valenciennes 
outside the doors of their tiny houses. Mrs. 
Professor never tired of watching these women, 
— who are for the most part middle-aged, while 
some of them are very old — as their nimble 
fingers dexterously shifted the innumerable 
little bobbins to and fro, while the delicate fab- 
ric slowly took the design upon which they were 
working. It is said that more Valenciennes 
lace is made here at Ypres, and at Courtrai and 
among the little Flemish towns between these 



142 The Spell of Flanders 

two cities, than in tlie French city from which 
this fine point derives its name. 

It is along the rue de Lille that the visitor 
will (let us hope !) find the wooden house that is 
the last, or nearly the last, survival of a type 
of architecture that was once very common in 
Ypres. It is inferior to the one in the Cloth 
Hall, which also came from this street, but is 
still in use — although it seemed to be closed 
when we passed it. A few steps further on we 
came to the Porte de Lille with its three semi- 
circular towers, erected in 1395. The Porte is 
connected with the open country beyond by a 
bridge across the wide moat, in which a stately 
white swan was swimming. The ancient walls, 
built by the famous military engineer Vauban, 
extend here for a long distance in both direc- 
tions and are in a fairly good state of preserva- 
tion. At the Porte de Thourout, where the for- 
tifications end on the northeastern side of the 
town, there is an open-air swimming pool which, 
according to the local guidebook is free during 
certain hours for men Saturday and Sunday, 
for women Wednesday, for soldiers Thursday 
and Friday, and for ladies Tuesday. The 
distinction between the women who can come 
on Wednesday and the ladies who are admitted 
Tuesday is not stated. 



When Ypres was Greater than London 143 

From the Porte de Lille we walked along the 
top of the ramparts toward the railway station 
— a promenade full of interest and charm. 
The broad moat in which a dozen snow white 
swans were swimming, the huge trees arching 
overhead, the quaint little houses to our right, 
with now and then a narrow street bending 
back into the town as if inviting us to follow 
and explore it — everything seemed to combine 
to make this one of our pleasantest experiences 
in Flanders, and we regretted that we did not 
have weeks instead of days in which to study 
this rare old town and visit some of the charm- 
ing old Flemish villages by which it is sur- 
rounded. 

The causes for the decline of the city from 
the proud position it occupied in the Middle 
Ages to its comparative insignificance to-day 
can be sketched in a very few words. Like the 
rest of Flanders, it had flourished exceedingly 
in consequence of the Hundred Years' War be- 
tween France and England. As commerce and 
industry in these two great neighbouring coun- 
tries declined, that of the Low Countries — 
which were then enjoying a prolonged period of 
comparative peace — augmented with abnormal 
rapidity. It was inevitable that when peace 
across the frontier was restored much of the 



144 The Spell of Flanders 

trade that France liad temporarily lost should 
return to it. A series of great sieges cut off 
the wool traffic with England that formed the 
foundation of the city's industry and prosper- 
ity. The first of these was in 1383 when the 
guildsmen of Ypres successfully beat off a 
powerful army from Ghent, aided by a large 
contingent from England. The plague, that 
terror of every overcrowded industrial town in 
those days, swept off thousands of people in 
1347 and in 1490, and a third of the inhabitants 
in 1552. These disasters still further crippled 
the cloth industry. In 1583 and 1584 an eight 
months' siege and the plague together reduced 
the population so fearfully that when the town 
at last surrendered to the Prince of Parma 
barely five thousand remained. After the re- 
ligious wars were over it recovered some of its 
ancient prosperity, but between 1648 and 1678 
it was besieged no less than four times, being a 
border town and one of the first to be attacked 
as the fortunes of war swayed, first one way 
and then the other. Eoused by the ravages of 
the plague the magistrates cleaned the city, 
passed stringent sanitary regulations, paved 
the streets and built a costly system of sewers 
— Ypres being one of the first cities in Europe 
to have these modern improvements. Wise as 



When Ypres was Greater than London 145 

these steps were, tliey came too late to arrest 
the decline of the town's industries and com- 
merce. One by one the artisans gave up the 
battle against the forces that were sapping the 
foundations of their prosperity and moved 
away — some to Ghent and Bruges, both of 
which were already beginning to decline ; others 
to far-off England, where they remained to lay 
the foundations of the vast textile industry 
that has since grown up across the Channel, 
but which traces its origin back to the artisans 
of Ypres in the days when the fame of that 
until lately all but forgotten town was known 
from one end of the world to the other. 




CHAPTER VIII 

COURTRAI AND THE BATTLE OF THE SPURS 

UR next expedition, after the delightful 
visit at Ypres, was to Courtrai, which is 
only twenty-two miles distant, although 
the two plodding little omnibus trains that 
we took, one after the other, were more than 
an hour getting us there. It was an hour 
most pleasantly spent, however, for we were 
constantly on the lookout for the fields of 
flax that we had read covered the valley of 
the River Lys as far as eye could see. If 
this was ever so it certainly was not the case 
in the summer of 1914, for there were more 
and larger fields of barley and other small 
grains than of flax. Still, we saw a great many 
plantings of the latter, and as the plant was in 
full bloom the sight was a very pretty one — 
the delicate green of each field being faintly 
tinged with the blue of the tiny flowers. It did 
not seem to be very tall, but it was still early 
June and a very backward summer. We also 
passed many fields in which the flax of the pre- 

146 



Courtrai and the Battle of the Spurs 147 

vious season was stacked to bleacli, evidently 
the crop from several fields being concentrated 
into one for this purpose. The water of the 
Elver Lys, from which some authorities say the 
French Fleur de Lys derives its name, is said 
to be superior to that of all other rivers for the 
retting of flax, and at all events the raising and 
preparation of this important staple has been 
the leading industry in this region for cen- 
turies, although Ghent is more important as a 
flax manufacturing centre. 

Presently our destination, of which the 
Flemish name is Kortrijk, came in sight, and 
we started — with the Professor leading the 
way, as usual — for the Grande Place. Here 
we found a market going on, with numerous 
booths and stalls arranged in crooked little 
streets, and crowds of thick-set peasant women 
with big baskets examining the wares displayed 
gingerly as if afraid that too great a display of 
interest would cause the merchants to enhance 
their prices. Amid this bustle and confusion 
we worked our way slowly to the centre of the 
Place where stood the small ivy-covered Belfry, 
which dates from early in the fourteenth cen- 
tury, and is one of the prettiest in Flanders. 
When the city was sacked in 1382, after one of 
its many sieges, the Belfry was one of the few 



148 The Spell of Flanders 

edifices to escape injury. Repaired or restored 
in 1423, in 1519, and again in 1717, this little 
monument of the Middle Ages has come down 
to us in an admirable state of preservation. 
Originally connected with a small public mar- 
ket, les petites halles, it gradually came to be 
surrounded with private houses until only its 
spire was visible, but in 1899 these were torn 
down and the Belfry left isolated as it is now. 
The clock originally placed on this tower is 
said by the historian Froissart to have been 
'* I'un des plus hiaux que on seuist trouver 
decha ne dela la mer " — one of the most beau- 
tiful here or abroad — but was removed by 
Philip the Bold, the first of the Burgundian 
Dukes to rule over Flanders, to Dijon, the cap- 
ital of Burgimdy. This was in 1382, but in 1395 
the people of Courtrai had replaced it by an- 
other equally ingenious. We tried to enter the 
old tower, but found one entrance guarded by 
the alarming sign, ''Haute tension — danger 
de la mort/' indicating that the electric light 
company used the lower part of the edifice as 
a transforming station. There was another 
small doorway, but it did not appear to have 
been opened for a long time, and we could find 
no one who knew who had the key. 

When we first announced our intention to 



Courtrai and the Battle of the Spurs 149 

spend a Summer in Flanders many friends 
protested, " But you do not speak Flemish — 
how do you expect to get along 1 ' ' Eight here 
it may be stated that this bugbear proved with- 
out foundation. Even in Ypres, where our 
Belgian acquaintances said we surely would 
have trouble, we found only two or three of 
those with whom we had occasion to converse 
who did not understand French at least well 
enough to give us the information we required. 
On a few occasions, when touring the poorer 
quarters of some old Flemish town, we were 
non-plussed for a moment, but the children 
helped us out in these emergencies by running 
off eagerly to find some one who spoke French. 
Everywhere we found the people accommodat- 
ing and courteous, never surly as one author 
says those he met in these very same towns 
were when he visited them half a dozen years 
ago. To be sure, our visits seldom took us 
into the very little towns, where, no -doubt, 
Flemish is often spoken exclusively — as our 
experience in Nieuport showed. 

The most curious fact about the little King- 
dom of Belgium is that it is sharply bi-lingual, 
the line of demarcation between the French and 
the Flemish speaking provinces running across 
the country from southwest to northeast a lit- 



150 The Spell of Flanders 

tie to the south of Brussels ; that city, however, 
being far more French than Flemish. Most of 
the towns have two names, which usually mean 
the same but are often so different in form that 
it is a wonder the people themselves do not get 
mixed up now and then. I'or example, the 
French name for the capital of the province of 
Hainaut is Mons, meaning mountain, while the 
Flemish name is Bergen, which means the same 
thing but looks very different. The important 
railroad junction of Braine-le-Comte between 
Mons and Brussels bears the queer Flemish 
name of 's Graven-Brakel. Even the postage 
stamps and the paper money are printed in 
the two languages, while the silver money is 
apparently minted in equal quantities of each. 
All public employes are required by law to 
know both languages, so that the public has 
no trouble either at the railway stations or 
post-offices. According to official statistics 
published while we were there, 38.17 per cent, 
of the population of the country speak only 
French; 43.38 per cent, speak only Flemish; 
while 18.13 per cent, speak more than one lan- 
guage and a few speak German only. Of the 
bi-linguals over 60 per cent, declared that they 
ordinarily spoke Flemish. 

Facing the Grande Place, and only a few 



Courtrai and the Battle of the Spurs 151 

steps from tlie Belfry, is the Hotel de Ville, an 
unprepossessing structure externally, althougli 
the historians say that it was once much better 
looking. It has, at all events, been restored, 
and the statues of the Counts of Flanders that 
were destroyed during the Revolution replaced 
by modern ones carved by a local sculptor. 
After finding the concierge we were shown a 
small collection of modern paintings by Bel- 
gian artists bequeathed to the city by one of 
its wealthy sons. This, however, was merely 
en route, as it were, to the great show-place of 
this — as of all other Flemish hotels de ville 
— the Salle du Conseil. Here the piece de re- 
sistance is the great chimney-piece, carved in 
1525 by unknown sculptors, who probably were 
natives of the city as there were several of good 
renown residing and working there at that pe- 
riod. The elaborate carvings with which this 
masterpiece is decorated comprise three tiers. 
At the top the figures represent the virtues: 
Faith, Humility, Charity, Chastity, Grenerosity, 
Temperance, Patience and Vigilance, In the 
middle section a series of pictures carved in 
stone typify the vices: Idolatry, Pride, Ava- 
rice, Sensuality, Jealousy, Gluttony, Anger and 
Idleness. The lowest tier contains reliefs that 
are supposed to show the punishment for these 



152 The Spell of Flanders 

vices, although the idea is not always quite easy 
to' follow. In niches projecting from the mid- 
dle section are fine statues, carved from wood, 
of Charles V in the centre, with Justice and 
Peace on the opposite sides. At the right and 
left sides of the chimney-piece are two more 
tiers of carvings, but of inferior interest to 
those on the front. The beamed ceiling of this 
fine room is worthy of at least a glance, for 
on the corbels supporting it are some of the 
most curious carvings to be seen in Flanders, 
representing the conquests of woman over man 
— beginning with Adam and Eve and Samson 
and Delilah, and including several examples 
from pagan mythology. 

We were next conducted down-stairs to the 
Salle Echevinale, where there is another fine 
chimney-piece which, however, was much less 
interesting than the one we had just seen. 
This room is further embellished with several 
frescoes by Guffens and Swerts, examples of 
whose work we had already seen at Ypres. 
The former artist painted the large composi- 
tion entitled the '' Departure of Baldwin IX 
for Constantinople," and the latter the more 
interesting picture of the Consultation of the 
Flemish leaders in this very room the day be- 
fore the Battle of Courtrai. Smaller frescoes 



Courtrai and the Battle of the Spurs 153 

depict other notable scenes in the old town's 
history, while small carvings near the ceiling 
represent the chief virtues of an upright judge. 
On a hot July day, in the year 1302, there 
took place, just outside the ancient walls of the 
city, the most famous event in the history of 
Courtrai. This was the great " Battle of the 
Spurs." In order to understand the signifi- 
cance of this conflict — which justly ranks as 
one of the decisive battles of the world — it is 
necessary to go back three-quarters of a cen- 
tury to the Baldwin of Constantinople, or the 
impostor who assumed his name and came to 
an ignominious end on the gibbet at Lille. This 
was in the year 1225. The following year 
Philip Augustus forced or persuaded Mar- 
garet, Baldwin's younger daughter, to leave 
the loyal Fleming to whom she had been mar- 
ried almost since childhood and wed one of his 
retainers, William of Dampierre. Then, dur- 
ing a period of more than fifty years, the Kings 
of France were able to exert a steadily increas- 
ing influence in Flanders and reduce the coun- 
try more and more completely to a French 
province. Finally, in 1296, the exactions of 
the French monarch — who, at that time, was 
Philip the Fair — became so humiliating that 
Margaret's son, Guy of Dampierre, then the 



154 The Spell of Flanders 

reigning Count, rebelled. A brief war fol- 
lowed, ending in Guy's utter defeat and im- 
prisonment, and in 1300 all Flanders was for- 
mally annexed to the French crown. 

Instead of submitting tamely to this act of 
aggression, the Flemish burghers were roused 
to fight more furiously for their fatherland 
than they had ever done for their Count. At 
Bruges a true leader of the people appeared 
in the person of Peter de Coninck, the dean of 
the then all-powerful Guild of the Weavers, and 
one of the most picturesque figures in mediseval 
history. Small and ill-favoured in face and 
figure, with only one eye, and speaking no lan- 
guage but Flemish, he was able to arouse the 
citizens to the wildest pitch of fury against 
their aggressors. Another popular hero of the 
hour was John Breidel, Dean of the Butchers' 
Guild, and reputed to be one of the richest men 
in Bruges; while a third was William of 
Juliers, Provost of Maestricht — a Churchman 
turned soldier for the cause of liberty. These 
three raised the standard of the Lion of Flan- 
ders to which rallied the Clauwaerts, as the 
Nationalist partisans were called; while the 
friends of France were named — after the Lily 
of France — the Liliaerts. The latter natu- 
rally included the magistrates and office-holders 




STATUE OF PETER DE CONINCK AND JOHN BREIDEL, BRUGES. 



Courtrai and the Battle of the Spurs 155 

of the leading towns, and in 1301, when Philip 
made a triumphal progress through the chief 
cities of his new dominions, he was everywhere 
received with much outward pomp. 

At Bruges the official reception was the most 
gorgeous of all, the rich gowns of the wives and 
daughters of the burghers causing Queen Isa- 
bella to exclaim, " I thought I was alone 
Queen, but here I see six hundred! " The 
mass of the people, however, were cold and 
sullen, and when the King proclaimed some 
public games no one would take part in them. 
Hardly had the royal party left the city before 
an insurrection broke out. De Coninck was 
arrested, but his followers burst into the 
prison, and, for a time, the leaders of the 
Liliaerts were behind the bars. A Erench 
force soon entered the city and set them free, 
and De Coninck fled to Damme, where the Lion 
of Flanders waved unmolested over a rapidly 
increasing host of Clauwaerts. 

On the 17th of May, 1302, a still stronger 
army of French entered the city, and it was 
rumoured that a general massacre of the 
Clauwaerts was planned for the morrow. 
Without waiting for the blow to be struck, the 
men from Damme and the surrounding towns, 
under the leadership of De Coninck and John 



156 The Spell of Flanders 

Breidel, poured into the city before daybreak 
and roaring *' ScJiilt end vriendt " — a battle- 
cry and password that no Frenchman could 
pronounce — they overwhelmed the partisans 
of the Lily. So sudden and unexpected was 
the attack, in the darkness and among narrow 
streets with which they were not acquainted, 
that the two thousand French knights who had 
entered the city so gaily on the previous day 
could offer no resistance and were slaughtered 
almost to a man. Barely forty escaped to tell 
King Philip of the massacre, while no record 
was made of the number of Liliaerts among the 
Flemings themselves who were in the heaps of 
dead that for three days thereafter were being 
buried in the fields outside of the city. This 
was the famous Matin de Bruges, hardly a 
glorious day's work considered as a feat of 
arms, but bold enough when regarded as a de- 
fiance by the artisans of a single industrial 
town of the most powerful monarch of the age. 
Philip, as was to be expected, was furious, 
and at once gathered an army the like of which 
had never before been seen in France; while 
all Flanders, with the exception of Ghent which 
the French still held, rallied to the support of 
De Coninck and his comrades. Scores of 
Flemish nobles were at that time languishing 



Courtrai and the Battle of the Spurs 157 

in Frencli prisons, but those who were free to 
come enlisted under the Lion of Flanders. 
The army of defence consisted for the most 
part, however, of workingmen — members of 
the great guilds of Bruges, Ypres, Audenaerde 
and the other Flemish towns, with seven hun- 
dred even from Ghent. Each guild marched 
under its gorgeous banner, the men armed with 
long pikes, iron lances, short swords, and a 
sort of club which they derisively called " goe- 
dendag/' or " good morning." On the eve 
of the battle a conference was held by the 
leaders of the army of defence, this being the 
scene depicted in the fine fresco in the Hotel de 
Ville. 

About nine or ten in the morning of the fol- 
lowing day the French army, some forty thou- 
sand strong, was seen approaching, led by the 
youthful Count of Artois. After a recon- 
noitre two experienced officers advised the 
young Prince not to attack the Flemings at 
once, but to worry them with his archers and 
separate them from the town where their bag- 
gage and provisions were. " These people 
have to eat three, or four times a day — when 
they start to retreat, fall on them, you will 
quickly win," they counselled him. 

This sage advice did not appeal to the impet- 



158 The Spell of Flanders 

uous young Count, or to liis valiant knights, 
who were burning with eagerness to avenge 
the Matin de Bruges. They confidently ex- 
pected that at the very sight of their host, for 
the most part mounted knights, the cowardly 
townsmen would turn and run. Nor did they 
pay much heed to the shrewdness and skill with 
which the Flemish leaders had chosen their 
position. In the marshy ground in front of the 
Flemish army were many streams and canals, 
the water concealed by brushwood, while the 
River Lys and the fortifications of the town 
protected them against an attack on either 
flank or in the rear. 

As the French knights rode forward the 
first ranks plunged into the hidden canals and 
streams with which the marsh — since known 
as the Bloed Meersch, or Bloody Marsh — was 
intersected. Then, as five centuries later at 
Waterloo, each succeeding rank pushed in the 
one before it, the canals became choked with 
drowning men and struggling horses, and it 
was not until these obstacles were literally 
filled with dead bodies that any part of the 
great French host could approach the Flemish 
lines. Then the Flemish guildsmen were for 
a moment hard pressed, but they quickly 
rallied and the proud French nobles were 



Courtrai and the Battle of the Spurs 159 

beaten down beneath their cruel pikes and 
clubs by hundreds. The Count of Artois him- 
self led the reserves into the melee when the 
day was all but lost and fought his way clear 
to the great standard of the Lion of Flanders, 
at the foot of which he fell. Their leader 
killed, the French sought to flee, but the rout 
and slaughter lasted through the long summer 
twilight and far into the night. 

According to an ancient chronicle, twenty 
thousand Frenchmen went down to death that 
day, including seven thousand knights, eleven 
hundred nobles, seven hundred lords, and 
sixty-three' counts, dukes or princes. As to 
these statistics they differ in every history, but 
certain it is that the flower of French chivalry 
perished in unheard of numbers before the on- 
slaught of the Flemish townsmen, and it is said 
that in all France there was no great house 
that did not mourn a father, a brother or a 
son. 

To the men of Flanders, on the other hand, 
the victory was complete beyond their wildest 
dreams. They piously gave thanks to Notre 
Dame de Groeninghe, the Abbey overlooking 
the Bloody Marsh, and hung up seven hundred 
golden spurs taken from the battlefield in the 
Church of Notre Dame. For a time Philip the 



160 The Spell of Flanders 

Fair sought to prolong the conflict, but his 
losses had been too terrible in this battle for 
him to risk another one against the now thor- 
oughly aroused guildsmen, and a few years 
later a treaty was signed that completely re- 
scinded the act of annexation and recognised 
the independence of Flanders once more. 

In the little Museum of Paintings we found 
a most interesting picture of the famous battle 
by the great Belgian artist, Nicaise de Keyser. 
It is said that the historian Voisin suggested 
this subject to the painter, then a young man 
of twenty-three, and he devoted eight months 
to its execution. Exhibited at the Salon at 
Brussels in 1836, it made a sensation through 
its merit, the historical importance of the sub- 
ject and the youth of the artist, and was pur- 
chased by the city of Courtrai by means of a 
popular subscription. It represents the de- 
cisive moment of the battle when the Count of 
Artois, unhorsed and disarmed, is about to be 
killed by the leader of the butchers ' guild, John 
Breidel. The museum contains a number of 
other interesting works by Belgian painters, 
chiefly modern, including one by Constantin 
Meunier, and a number by natives of Courtrai. 
This last feature is characteristic of all these 
little museums and is a most happy idea. In 



Courtrai and the Battle of the Spurs 161 

France the museums of fine arts in the pro- 
vincial towns often form in themselves admi- 
rable memorials of the famous artists who were 
horn or worked there, the names of the most 
important being carved about the frieze or 
brought to mind in some equally prominent 
way. In years to come it is to be hoped that 
these little Flemish towns can follow this ex- 
ample and erect suitable structures to house 
their art treasures — of which such a collec- 
tion as this one at Courtrai forms a fine nu- 
cleus — and in so doing strive to commemorate 
all of those to whom the town is indebted for its 
artistic fame. In the case of Courtrai the ros- 
ter would be a long one, for local authorities 
have recorded the names of more than two 
hundred painters, sculptors, architects, en- 
gravers, metal-workers, miniaturists and mas- 
ter-makers of tapestries. 

Unlike many Flemish towns, Courtrai is less 
renowned for its churches than for its civic 
monuments. The great church of St. Martin, 
whose picturesque Gothic tower rises high 
above the Grande Place, although the edifice 
itself is some hundred yards distant from the 
Place itself, dates from 1382, when an older 
church on the same site was burned by the vic- 
torious troops of Charles VI when they sacked 



162 The Spell of Flanders 

the city after the Battle of Rosbecque. It was 
completed in 1439 and contains a number of 
interesting paintings and carvings, several of 
them by local artists and sculptors. The more 
important Church of Notre Dame, with its 
square unfinished tower, dates from 1211 and 
was founded by Baldwin of Constantinople. 
At that time the Counts of Flanders had a 
castle at Courtrai and it was at the side of this 
that Count Baldwin and his fair wife Marie 
located their great church, of which the founda- 
tion stone was laid before the Count departed 
on the crusade from which he was destined 
never to return. In the Chapel of the Counts, 
which was built in the fourteenth century, are 
mural paintings of the Counts and Countesses 
of Flanders, the earlier ones dating from the 
century during which the chapel itself was con- 
structed. 

The artistic masterpiece of this church is 
the '' Raising of the Cross," by Van Dyck. 
This fine picture was painted for this very 
church and was delivered by the artist in 1631, 
the church still possessing his receipt for the 
one hundred livres de gros (about two hundred 
and twenty dollars) paid for it. In 1794 the 
picture was carried to Paris and placed in the 
Louvre, and on its restoration to the Nether- 



Courtrai and the Battle of the Spurs 163 

lands was several years in the museum at Brus- 
sels, being returned to its proper place in 
Notre Dame in 1817. During the night of De- 
cember 6th-7th, 1907, it was mysteriously 
stolen, its disappearance causing a great com- 
motion, but January 23rd it was discovered in 
a field at Pitthem, where it had lain exposed 
to the rain and sunshine since its removal from 
the church. Apparently the robbers had be- 
come frightened and abandoned it, or possibly 
were prevented from returning to get it by the 
hue and cry that had been raised. At any rate, 
it did not seem to be much the worse for its 
little outing, and was duly hung up again 
where any tourist who has a franc to spare can 
see it. 

It was in Notre Dame that the victors after 
the battle of Courtrai hung up seven hundred 
golden spurs, more or less, picked up from the 
battle-field. These were hung in a little side 
chapel at present decorated by two black lions, 
but the original spurs were taken away when 
the French sacked the city after the disastrous 
battle of Eosbecque. 

A little beyond this interesting old church 
the rue Gruido Gezelle — named after the poet 
who for many years was a vicaire at Notre 
Dame and whose bust stands in a little bosquet, 



164 The Spell of Flanders 

or wooded parklet, hard by — conducts us to 
the famous old Broel towers which guard an 
ancient bridge across the Lys. These fine 
specimens of mediaeval military architecture 
are in an admirable state of preservation. The 
Spuytorre, or Southern tower, was first built 
by Philip of Alsace in the twelfth century, was 
pillaged, and perhaps wholly destroyed, by 
Charles VI and restored or rebuilt by Philip 
the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, in 1386. There 
was not much to see in this tower, save some 
dungeons below. The Inghelbrugtorre, or 
South tower, was built at the same time as the 
bridge, in 1411-1413. There was formerly an 
archeological museum in this tower, but we 
were told that it had been removed to the 
Grandes Halles, near the railroad station, 
which have recently been restored. We subse- 
quently visited the collections there, which 
were very interesting but too miscellaneous to 
be described. Returning from the towers by 
the rue de Groeninghe we paid a brief visit to 
the fine monument of the Battle of Groeninghe, 
which is the Flemish name for the Battle of the 
Spurs. At the summit a bronze Pucelle of 
Flanders brandishes a goedendag, one of the 
celebrated war-clubs that did such deadly work 
on that famous day. This monument, by 



Courtrai and the Battle of the Spurs 165 

Godefroid Devreese, a native of Courtrai, was 
erected by popular subscription in 1905. 

It is in these smaller Flemish towns that 
the visitor who takes the time to journey a lit- 
tle away from the closely built houses and 
rough paved streets of the city will find himself 
after a few minutes of brisk walking out in 
the green fields and winding lanes of the open 
country. The trip is well worth the small ex- 
ertion, for nowhere in the world can one see 
such marvellous wild flowers — fleurs des 
champs — as in Belgium. Every wheat field 
is sprinkled with the most wonderful poppies, 
of a rich deep red that even the choicest ar- 
tificial flowers in America cannot equal; with 
blue corn-flowers growing tall and big and of 
an indescribably deep blue that at times shades 
into purple; and along the edges is a thin 
fringe of small purple flowers, shaped like 
morning glories but much smaller, the English 
name of which I do not know. In the grass of 
the pasture lands are innumerable tiny white 
marguerites, with here and there a tuft of 
daisies. Along the country lanes one can pick 
a score of other varieties of wild flowers which 
here bloom all summer long, not to mention 
the exquisite purple heather that makes every 
hillside glow with colour in August and 



166 The Spell of Flanders 

tlirougliout the fall. To us, however, the 
wheat fields with the poppies and corn-flowers 
were by far the most charming as we wandered 
up and down West Flanders in the month of 
June. Often one or the other grew so pro- 
fusely as to give the whole field a rich mass of 
colour, at times all red, in other places a solid 
blue. 

As we strolled along through these flower 
gardens of the fields we enjoyed still another 
treat, for everywhere in Belgium the skylarks 
abound in myriads. To one who has never 
heard them there are few enjoyments more ex- 
quisite than to watch and listen as these tiny 
minstrels of the sky go through their little per- 
formance. Suddenly, almost before the eye 
can locate it, one shoots upward from the wav- 
ing wheat in front of us, his rich trills fairly 
making the air vibrate with melody. Higher 
and yet higher he goes, his little wings strug- 
gling wildly, as if the effort of flying and sing- 
ing at the same time was too much for him. 
Never, for an instant, however, does the music 
stop, and as his tiny form rises farther and 
farther into the air he gradually begins to 
drive forward in a wide curve — but still ris- 
ing and still fluttering madly — until he be- 
comes a mere speck against the sky. Then, all 



Courtrai and the Battle of the Spurs 167 

at once, the fluttering wings spread outward 
and are still, and he begins to volplane slowly 
downward in a long slow sweep, while his 
notes become if possible more shrill and vi- 
brating than ever. Then, like a flash, as he 
nears the ground, he darts sharply out of sight 
and the song is over. 

All day long the pleasant, flower-bedecked 
fields ring with this music — at times a dozen 
are singing in the air at once. When the sun 
is high the birds often rise until completely out 
of sight, only their falling music telling the 
listener that they are still there. Toward 
evening the flights are shorter, but as the calm 
of approaching night settles over the broad and 
peaceful fields it seems as if the songs are 
sweeter than at any other time. 

Two of the greatest English poets have given 
us wonderful word pictures of this marvellous 
little bird, which surely sings as sweetly in 
Belgium as in England. Shelley in his famous 
Ode, describes- the song itself; his metre imi- 
tating the breathless rush of the aerial notes: 

"Hail to thee, blithe spirit! 

Bird thou never wert, 
That from Heaven, or near it, 

Ponrest thy full heart 
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. 



168 The Spell of Flanders 

" Higher still and higher 

From the earth thou springest, 
Like a cloud of fire; 

The deep blue thou wingest, 
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest." 

In Wordsworth's noble lines the thought is 
less upon the song, but dwells upon the mother 
bird and her hidden nest: 

" Ethereal minstrel ! pilgrim of the sky ! 

Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound? 
Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye 

Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground? 
Thy nest, which thou canst drop into at will, 

Those quivering wings composed, that music still!" 




CHAPTEE IX 

GHENT IN THE DAYS OP THE FLEMISH COUNTS 

TURING the Middle Ages Ghent was, for 
nearly five centuries, one of the great- 
est cities in the Occidental world. '^ If 
you have ever been in Flanders," wrote Jean 
Froissart, near the close of the fourteenth 
century, " you are aware that Ghent is the 
sovereign city of Flanders in power, in wis- 
dom, in government, in the number of its 
houses, in position and in all else that goes 
to make a great and noble city, and that 
three great rivers serve to bring to it ships 
from every part of the world." After fur- 
ther eulogising the three rivers referred to, 
which were the Scheldt, the Lys and the Lieve, 
the chronicler of Valenciennes added that the 
city could put eighty thousand men in the field, 
and that it would require a host of two hun- 
dred thousand warriors to capture it. These 
statements, though no doubt exaggerations, do 
not seem to the tourist so impossible of belief 
as corresponding figures regarding the former 

169 



170 The Spell of Flanders 

greatness of the other cities in Flanders, for 
Ghent is still " a great and noble city," while 
some of its once puissant rivals are now little 
more than country villages. In fact, to the 
visitor who approaches the centre of the town 
from either of its two principal railway sta- 
tions — it has five in all — the city seems to 
be essentially a modern one, with fine streets 
similar in every way to those to be found in 
Antwerp or Brussels, and it is therefore with 
a shock of surprise that he suddenly finds him- 
self riding past one hoary old structure after 
another whose frowning grey walls and mas- 
sive architecture bespeak an antiquity strangely 
at variance with their surroundings. 

To the Professor, and to all students of the 
thrilling history of this famous old Flemish 
town, the most interesting of these reminders 
of the Ghent of five hundred or one thousand 
years ago is the imposing Chateau des Comtes, 
or Castle of the Counts, the ruins of which 
stand in the very lieart of the town with the 
busy life and bustle of the Ghent of to-day 
surging about them. Hither, as soon as our 
belongings were safely deposited in the hotel, 
we came — almost as a matter of course. In 
part this magnificent relic of the feudal ages 
dates from the ninth century, when it was 



Ghent in the Days of the Counts 171 

called the new castle, Novum Castellum, to dis- 
tinguish it from a still older castle situated 
hard by that was destroyed about the year 
1010. Two of the three stories composing this 
original structure are still intact and can be 
seen by the visitor when he inspects the cellar 
of the keep. Here the columns and arches are 
of later construction, but the walls — which are 
over five and a half feet thick — are the work 
of builders who put these stones in place more 
than a thousand years ago. It was in 1180, 
according to the Latin inscription that can still 
be read just inside of the main entrance from 
the Place Ste. Pharailde, that Philip of Al- 
sace — son of the Dierick of Alsace who 
brought the Holy Blood to the chapel of St. 
Basil at Bruges — erected the present struc- 
ture. Its purpose was " to check the un- 
bounded arrogance of the inhabitants of Ghent, 
who had become too proud of their riches and 
of their fortified houses, which looked like 
towers." The Couut had been in Palestine 
two years before and had greatly admired some 
of the strong castles erected there by the cru- 
saders and instructed his builders to imitate 
these models, which he no doubt described to 
them. 

After inspecting the remains of the earlier 



172 The Spell of Flanders 

castle we mounted the staircase at the left of 
the entrance tower. This leads to the top of 
the outer castle wall and can be followed en- 
tirely around the great ellipse formed by the 
complete structure. From every side fine 
views can be had of the surrounding city and 
the moat and River Lieve which guard the cas- 
tle on the opposite side from the Place. Com- 
ing to the square tower behind the entrance 
gateway we were shown a room on the first 
story formerly used as a prison and torture 
chamber. From the top of this tower the ban- 
ner of the Count was hoisted when the men of 
Qhent were called upon to follow their over- 
lord to war. The gateway below, at the corner 
of the Place Ste. Pharailde and the rue de la 
Monnaie, has a tragic interest from the fact 
that here were placed the two railings, called 
les bailies, between which those sentenced to 
death by the Council of Flanders were ex- 
ecuted. Executions also often took place in 
the outer courtyard between the exterior wall 
and the Keep, or inner structure. In this 
yard, in 1445, the procession of the Order of 
the Golden Fleece formed for its march to the 
church of St. Bavon, and one can imagine how 
gay with banners and fair ladies the old castle 
must have been on that occasion. 



Ghent in the Days of the Counts 173 

The inner castle, usually styled the Palace, 
was the actual residence of the Counts of Flan- 
ders whenever they chanced to be stopping in 
the city. Thanks to the skilful restoration of 
the government, the various parts of this edi- 
fice can be seen in approximately their original 
condition, save for the rich tapestries and the 
scant but solid furniture with which the rooms 
were formerly made habitable. The chambers 
of the Count and Countess are particularly fine 
specimens of the living quarters of the medias- 
val nobility, quite apart from their many his- 
toric associations. Below the former is the 
entrance to the underground prison built by 
Philip of Alsace. It is eighteen feet deep, and 
extends ten and one-half feet below the level, 
of the courtyard, while one of the walls is seven 
and the others six feet thick. A little air fil- 
ters in from a zig-zag opening in one wall, but 
no light. The prisoners were let down into this 
horrible cavern by means of a ladder, or a 
basket attached to a rope, after which even the 
opening by which they entered was closed and 
they were left alone in the dark. For more 
than six centuries this cell was in constant use, 
and one cannot but wonder whether milady the 
Countess in her sweet chamber overhead ever 
had her dreams troubled by visions of the 



174 The Spell of Flanders 

despairing victims in their beds of slime 
who were here awaiting the Count's decision 
as to their final fate. It seems that this 
prison, fearful though it must have been 
to those incarcerated there, was not one of 
those oubliettes of which the Bastille and 
many another mediaeval castle had so many. 
So far as known, it was only used for 
prisoners awaiting trial, or as a species 
of solitary confinement for serious crimes. 
In 1657 a school-teacher accused of teaching 
heretical doctrines to his pupils was confined 
here thirteen months, but there is no record 
of any one being flung down into this pit to 
be " forgotten." Still, it must be said that 
such proceedings would not be likely to become 
a matter of record, and very little is known 
about what went on behind these grim walls 
when the Counts of Flanders and Dukes of 
Burgundy held absolute and undisputed sway. 
Any one who asked inconvenient questions 
would very probably have come here himself! 
The Great Hall, which is about one hundred 
and twenty-five feet long by from fifty to sixty 
feet in width, is a chapter in the history of Flan- 
ders by itself. Here the Counts, and their suc- 
cessors, the Dukes of Burgundy, held many of 
their great banquets and state functions of 



Ghent in the Days of the Counts 175 

various kinds. Louis of Maele in 1346 and 
Philip the Good in 1445 gave state banquets in 
this hall of which long accounts have been pre- 
served in the contemporary chronicles. The 
latter, which was held on the occasion of the 
seventh meeting of the Knights of the Golden 
Fleece already mentioned, must have been 
quite a tremendous affair. At one end of this 
Hall the Council of the Vieux-Bourg used to 
pronounce sentence upon prisoners, and half 
a dozen famous treaties and many of minor im- 
portance were proclaimed in this room. No 
doubt, also, the Great Hall was used as the 
chief living-room of the castle on less formal 
occasions, when the Count and Countess per- 
haps dined on a raised dais at one end, while 
the throng of courtiers and retainers feasted 
noisily farther down the hall. On such occa- 
sions one can imagine how the great stone fire- 
place, a dozen feet wide and seven or eight 
feet high, must have roared, while the torches 
and candles used to supplement the feeble light 
from the narrow windows flared and sent their 
smoke up to the grimy rafters overhead. The 
great room, now so empty and silent, was then 
gay with the variegated costumes of the olden 
time, while its walls echoed to the songs and 
laughter of the boisterous throng. 



176 The Spell of Flanders 

There are half a score of other rooms to be 
seen: the kitchen with its fireplace big enough 
to roast an ox whole ; the residence of the Cas- 
tellane or keeper of the castle; the small au- 
dience chamber near the bedrooms of their 
highnesses — which was used on ordinary oc- 
casions instead of the great hall — and several 
others. Of them all the most interesting is 
the ancient stable, which is entered from the 
castle yard. It seems hard to believe that this 
vast vaulted room, with its splendid columns 
and Eomanesque arches was ever designed or 
used as a stable, but such the historians all 
aver was the case. In appearance it resembles 
an early church or chapel. In a glass case at 
one side is a gruesome collection of skeletons 
that were uncovered here in 1904, presumably 
those of prisoners who were secretly executed 
no one knows how many years ago. After the 
fourteenth century the castle ceased to be oc- 
cupied by the sovereigns as a residence, and 
the stable, no longer needed for horses, be- 
came a torture chamber and continued to be 
used for this purpose until the close of the 
eighteenth century. It is here that the beauti- 
ful and unfortunate Jacqueline, Countess of 
Hainaut and Holland, is said to have been con- 
fined by Philip the Good when that amiable 



Ghent in the Days of the Counts 177 

monarch was trying to persuade lier to part 
with her patrimony. She resisted bravely and 
was finally released, but her powerful and wily 
antagonist subjugated her at last. The Pro- 
fessor read, or was told, that there is another 
prison cell below the waters of the moat, and 
also a passage, miles in length, leading out to 
the open country and intended for escape in 
case a foe besieging the castle seemed likely 
to take it, but these we were not able to dis- 
cover nor did the official guide to the castle 
appear to know anything about them. 

Speaking of sieges, the castle has witnessed 
more than one. The Novum Castellum, which 
preceded the present edifice, was besieged in 
1128 by Dierick of Alsace. In 1302, a few 
months before the Battle of the Spifrs, the citi- 
zens of Ghent rose en masse against the sher- 
itfs of King Philip of France, who took refuge 
here. The infuriated crowd, armed with pikes, 
axes and swords, beat upon the gates and fi- 
nally set fire to the castle. At this the besieged 
gave up, and all within were forced to run a 
fearful gauntlet. Without the castle gates the 
people formed a dense mass, bristling with 
pikes and spears, through which a narrow lane 
was kept open. As the late defenders of the 
castle emerged they had to pass down this ave- 



178 The Spell of Flanders 

ime of steel, and whoever had committed any 
crime against the burghers never reached the 
farther end alive, whether he was one of the 
lord high sheriffs or a page. In 1338 the Count 
himself, Louis of Maele, was here besieged by 
Jacques Van Artevelde, and forced to make 
terms with the great tribune. 

The later history of the structure itself is 
interesting and curious. Already in 1302 
hovels had been built against the castle walls 
on the land side. In 1350 a mint was installed 
within the castle, where it remained until sup- 
pressed in the sixteenth century, and from the 
same year the Court of the Count held ses- 
sions here. It was used less and less as 
a residence after this, but from 1407 to 
1778 was the seat of the Council of Flan- 
ders, which succeeded the Court of the Counts. 
In 1779 the buildings used by the court 
were sold and in 1797 and 1798 those of 
the Assembly of the Vieux Bourg also passed 
into private hands. The Castellany of the 
Vieux Bourg was for many years a public inn, 
and in 1807 a factoiy was established in the 
Keep, the Great Hall being used as a machine- 
room. The Castellany then became a cotton 
spinning mill, was partly burned in 1829, but 
rebuilt and continued in use as a mill until 



Ghent in the Days of the Counts 179 

1884. Meanwhile other small buildings were 
erected around the old walls until they were 
entirely concealed, and a guidebook of this pe- 
riod states that of the old castle " nothing 
now remains but the entrance." In 1887 some 
archeologists stirred the municipal and na- 
tional governments to action with a view to 
saving and restoring this splendid monument 
of the Middle Ages, the Gateway having al- 
ready been acquired by the nation in 1872. 
The work of demolishing the buildings that had 
clustered about the old walls and of restora- 
tion lasted from 1889 till 1913, when at last 
the structure was brought into the condition 
that the visitor beholds to-day. In its present 
form it is unquestionably one of the most in- 
teresting and important examples of feudal 
architecture in Europe. Within its sombre 
walls the student has, in records of stone, an 
epitome of the history of ten centuries. 

The Professor informed us that, in the 
course of his researches, he had run across a 
reference to some legend or popular tradition 
concerning a siege of Ghent in the year 930, 
or thereabouts, by the Kings of England, Scot- 
land and Ireland. The city, according to this 
tale, was bravely defended by Dierick, Lord of 
Dixmude, and aU the attacks of the besiegers 



180 The Spell of Flanders 

were repelled for many months. Their majes- 
ties from across the Channel were naturally 
much incensed at this unexpected resistance, 
and warned the burghers and their valiant 
chief that if they did not surrender within 
twenty-four hours, they would raze the city to 
the ground and sow corn on its ruins. Not- 
withstanding this threat, to the fulfilment of 
which the kings aforesaid took a mighty oath, 
the men of Ghent fought stubbornly on, and 
finally the besiegers were forced to give up 
their enterprise. The English monarch, how- 
ever, in order to fulfil his vow and thereby 
ease his conscience, humbly begged permission 
of the victors to allow him to throw a grain of 
corn in the market-place. This modest request 
was granted, but to prevent any such stratagem 
as the one that proved so successful in the fa- 
mous siege of Troy, a tiny hole was made in the 
city wall and the monarch required to crawl 
through alone, returning the same way after 
the corn-throwing performance was over. 
From this circumstance the name of Enge- 
lande-gat was derisively given to the little 
street leading from the Bestroom-Porte to St. 
Michel — a name which Pryse L. Gordon in 
his book on Holland and Belgium, written in 
1834, stated was still retained at that time. 



Ghent in the Days of the Counts 181 

We were unable to find it, however, in one of 
our early morning tramps, although we found 
a rue d'Angieterre which runs into the Place 
St. Michel directly in front of the church, and 
may have derived its name from that of the 
earlier street which, quite possibly, it may have 
replaced. The great plan of the city drawn 
by Hondius shows a vast number of streets and 
lanes that to-day have entirely disappeared. 
The legend, however, may have had some basis 
in fact, although the three kings were no doubt 
a fanciful embellishment added by the peas- 
ants as they repeated the story of some early 
attack. There were plenty of small potentates 
in those days prowling about to seize whatever 
was not well defended, or gave promise of rich 
booty, without going across the Channel to look 
for them. 

It was at about this period, in fact a little 
earlier, that another of the famous *' monu- 
ments " of Ghent was erected. This is the 
Abbey of St. Bavon, which alone would justify 
a visit to the city if there were nothing else to 
see. A primitive abbey on this site is said to 
have been founded about the year 631 by St. 
Amand, an early missionary, who dedicated it 
to St. Peter. One of this prelate's converts 
was a rich nobleman named Allowin, who took 



182 The Spell of Flanders 

the name of Bavon on his conversion and re- 
tired into a monastery. A second abbey took 
the name of St. Bavon, the deceased monk hav- 
ing been canonized, aiid around these two re- 
ligious institutions a little settlement grew up 
that was destined to expand into the mighty 
city of Ghent. At St. Bavon, therefore, the 
visitor beholds not merely the ruins of an an- 
cient and famous abbey but the birthplace of 
the city that has played so great a part in the 
history of Flanders and of Europe. When 
Baldwin II died his widow, the daughter of 
Alfred the Great, had him buried at the mon- 
astery of St. Peter, to which she made liberal 
donations. Successive Counts and Countesses 
followed this example, the two abbeys becoming 
rich and powerful, and the town soon became 
the home of numerous merchants who took ad- 
vantage of the protection afforded by these re- 
ligious institutions, and also of the strategic 
location of the town at the junction of three 
rivers. The Quai an Ble and the Quai aux 
Herbes date from this epoch, the merchants 
speedily establishing a market for the sale of 
grain and other products. The Fish Market 
and the famous Marche du Vendredi, or Fri- 
day Market, soon followed and Ghent had be- 
gun the development that was destined to make 



Grhent in the Days of the Counts 183 

it, for three centuries, one of the greatest trad- 
ing centres in the world. 

The present buildings of the Abbey date 
from the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the 
original structures having been destroyed dur- 
ing the tenth century. It was during the thir- 
teenth and fourteenth centuries that the Ab- 
bey attained the zenith of its power. Here, in 
1369, was solemnised the marriage of Philip 
the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, with Margaret, 
the daughter of Louis of Maele, the last of the 
Counts of Flanders to be known by that title 
only. This event virtually ended the long line 
of Flemish Counts, for the title thereafter be- 
came one of many similarly held by the power- 
ful Dukes of Burgundy and their successors 
and was only used on state occasions, or when 
it served their purpose. The unfortunate 
Michelle, the first wife of Philip the Good, was 
interred here. By a strange irony of fate it 
was Charles the Fifth of all men, the valiant 
Protector of the Faith, head and front of the 
monarchs who remained steadfastly loyal to 
the Catholic Church, who began the work of 
destroying this splendid and ancient monas- 
tery. To build the great fortress by which he 
held in awe the turbulent citizens of Ghent he 
ordered the demolishment of a considerable 



184 The Spell of Flanders 

part of its buildings and the erection on its site 
of his citadel, the Chateau cles Espagnols. The 
Calvinists continued the work of destruction in 
1581, the French wrecking the buildings still 
further, and the revolt of 1830 completing the 
ruin of what was in its day of prosperity one 
of the finest monastic institutions in Europe. 

Since 1834 the ruins have been carefully pro- 
tected against further injury; and, as they 
stand, give the observer a most imposing real- 
isation of their former grandeur. The Ee- 
fectory, or dining-hall, is still fairly intact, and 
is used as a museum of sculptures saved from 
the wreck of the other buildings, and including 
some found in other parts of the city. One of 
these is a tombstone thought to be that of 
Hubert Van Eyck, while another is the Homme 
du Beffroi, one of the four stone statues erected 
in 1338 on the corners of the Belfry. A bap- 
tismal font found in the ruins of the Abbey 
contains a curious bas-relief representing 
Adam and Eve being expelled from Paradise. 
It is not, however, in these detached items that 
the visitor will find the chief interest and in- 
spiration of the ancient Abbey, but in the gen- 
eral views that in every direction give a con- 
ception of the former vast extent and richness 
of the buildings. In their present condition 













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G-hent in the Days of the Counts 185 

the ruins form a series of pictures of wonder- 
ful beauty, not only in the remains of their 
architectural and artistic splendour, but be- 
cause Nature, kinder than man, has covered the 
scars made by the despoilers with her choicest 
tapestries of trailing vines and glowing flowers 
and spread her softest carpets of verdure 
along the silent and deserted cloisters. 

Eeturning to the heart of the city, another 
memento of the earliest period of the city's 
growth attracted our attention. This was the 
Chateau of Girard le Diable (Grirard the 
Devil) the first of the " monuments " to 
be encountered if one arrives by the South- 
ern railway station. This edifice, now com- 
pletely restored and used as the depository 
of the provincial archives, dates from 1216. 
Apart from the exterior, however, which re- 
produces the original appearance of the cas- 
tle, the only portion of interest to the visitor 
is the crypt which is over one hundred feet 
long and nearly forty-five feet in width, mak- 
ing it one of the largest in Flanders. The 
vaulted roof is supported by massive round 
columns and forms a notable example of the 
ogival style of architecture. We sought in 
vain to find what the noble Sir Girard did or 
did not do to receive his satanic appellation. 



186 The Spell of Flanders 

From tlie records lie appears to have been a 
tolerably worthy citizen, holding, as did his 
father before him, the position of Chatelain of 
Ghent. A fortunate marriage, apparently, 
gave him the means to erect this exceptionally 
fine castle, which has — like many of the old 
buildings in the city — had a most varied his- 
tory. For two or three centuries it remained 
the residence of the Chatelains of Ghent, then, 
for a time, was used by the city as an arsenal, 
was occupied by the Hieronimites, and then 
became in succession a school, a mad-house, an 
orphan asylum, a house of correction, and a 
fire house. Its spacious halls now contain the 
precious charters of the Counts of Flanders and 
innumerable historic documents of Ghent and 
the other cities of the province. 

The most ancient church in Ghent is that of 
St. Nicholas in the Marche aux Grains. It was 
founded in 912, or slightly more than a thou- 
sand years ago. The original edifice was 
burned in 1120, so that the present structure 
dates from that century. A picturesque fea- 
ture of the exterior is the row of tiny one-story 
houses snuggling up against the side of the 
great church on the rue Petite Turquis. The 
west window is an extremely lofty lancet of 
great beauty. The doorway on this side was 



Grhent in the Days of the Counts 187 

for many years crowded between commonplace 
three-story houses, the church builders of Flan- 
ders apparently caring very little how the im- 
posing majesty of their noble churches might 
be marred by adjacent buildings, but these 
have now been removed and this front of the 
structure cleared. 

Among the treasures of this church are the 
relics of St. Anne, said to have been brought 
from Jerusalem by Godfrey of Bouillon. In 
the sacristy is some oil from the tomb of St. 
Nicholas of Myra and Bari, after whom the 
church was named. This saint died in 342 and 
is the subject of many picturesque mediaeval 
legends. Even in infancy he is alleged to have 
observed the fasts, refusing the breast of his 
nurse. He used to look particularly after chil- 
dren, young women, sailors and travellers. On 
one occasion he came to an inn where the 
wicked inn-keeper fed his guests with the flesh 
of young children. St. Nicholas immediately 
went to the tub where the bodies of the inno- 
cents lay in brine and, reviving them, restored 
them all alive and whole again to their parents. 
This incident is frequently depicted by Flemish 
painters. After his death the bones of the 
Saint were buried at Myra, but were stolen 
some centuries later — according to certain 



188 The Spell of Flanders 

monkish chronicles — and, after many adven- 
tures in which the spirit of the deceased 
prelate participated, the oil which was found 
in his sarcophagus was brought here. Jean 
Lyon, Dean of the guild of boatmen, and 
one of the heroes of the White Hoods in 
their resistance to the cruel Louis de Maele, 
was buried in this church. 

One of the other churches of Ghent, the 
Cathedral of St. Bavon, dates in part from the- 
same early period as the other monuments de- 
scribed in this chapter. Originally dedicated 
to St. John, the name was changed to St. Bavon 
in 1540 and it became a cathedral nine years 
later. It is not, however, the cathedral — of 
which the nave and transepts were not com- 
pleted until 1533 to 1559 — but the earlier 
church of St. Jean that figures in the history 
of Ghent under Counts of Flanders. Of this 
church the crypt, which dates from the 
eleventh or twelfth century, and the choir, 
dating from the ■ thirteenth century, still re- 
main. Our exploration of the cold and gloomy 
crypt served to bring back the earlier pe- 
riod of the history of Ghent in two ways 
— not only is its present appearance un- 
doubtedly much the same as it was eight or 
nine centuries ago, when the city of the weavers 



Grhent in the Days of the Counts 185 

was just beginning to make its power and fame 
known in the land, but the historian sees here 
the tombs of many of the great men of the city. 
For the most part there were merchant princes, 
aristocrats, the leaders of the Liliaert faction 

— those who sided with the King of France 
and took his lilies as their emblem. 

Under its early Flemish Counts, the history 
of Ghent was, on the whole, one of rapid and 
almost uninterrupted expansion. The mer- 
chants who flocked to the little town around 
the Abbeys of St. Peter and St. Bavon were 
followed by similar throngs of artisans, and as 
the commerce of the city grew apace so its 
industrial importance expanded. On the death 
of Philip of Alsace, who had erected the Cha- 
teau on the Place Ste. Pharailde to hold the 
city in check, its burghers wrested from the 
feeble hands of his widow the famous Keure 
of 1191, a sort of local Magna Carta which 
confirmed all pre-existing privileges and 
granted others. The same year the Treaty of 
Arras, by which Baldwin VIII ceded Arras 
and the County of Artois to Philip Augustus, 
the wily and land-grasping King of France, 
made Ghent virtually the capital of Flanders 

— a position that had hitherto been occupied 
by Bruges. Like its rival on the Roya, Ghent 



190 The Spell of Flanders 

had become an important centre for the woollen 
trade with England, and also for all the 
branches of woollen manufacture, the '' scar- 
lets " of Ghent being renowned far and wide. 
The thirteenth century — in consequence of 
the folly of Baldwin of Constantinople who, as 
we have seen, went off on a fanatical enterprise 
to the Far East, leaving the richest county in 
the world at the mercy of his enemies — saw a 
steady decline in the power of the Counts; 
and, while the Kings of France profited might- 
ily by this situation, the shrewd burghers of 
Ghent, Bruges, Ypres and the other powerful 
Flemish communes were not backward in ex- 
tending and securing their own powers also. 
The result was that the successive Counts and 
Countesses were forced to submit to repeated 
encroachments on their authority. In 1228 
Count Ferrand established a Council of thirty- 
nine members which soon became a virtual oli- 
garchy and the actual ruler of the city. This 
body, while maintaining at first fairly friendly 
relations with the Counts, soon began to treat 
with other nations and the other cities in Flan- 
ders as if it was the actual sovereign. Then, 
as the King of France, toward the close of the 
thirteenth century, began to give evidence of 
an intention to seize the rich county of Flan- 



Ghent in the Days of the Counts 191 

ders for himself — thus despoiling both the 
Counts and the burghers at the same time — 
Ghent joined heartily in the general movement 
toward a national resistance. In 1297 the 
Count Guy granted the city a new Keure, or 
charter, even more liberal than that of 1191, 
and formed an alliance with England against 
the common foe. This, however, came to noth- 
ing, and all Flanders was over-run by the vic- 
torious French troops. Ghent, after a brief 
resistance, yielded, and the French King, mak- 
ing liberal concessions to win the support of 
the most powerful of all the Flemish communes, 
the Liliaerts, or supporters of the Lily of 
France, were temporarily holding the upper 
hand when the astounding tidings came of the 
Battle of the Spurs. 



CHAPTER X 

THE AGE WHEN GHENT WAS GOVERNED BY 
ITS GUILDS 

fT was on the 12th of July, 1302, that the 
guildsmen of Flanders — chiefly, as we have 
seen, those from the two cities of Bruges 
and Ypres — humbled the chivalry of France 
and demonstrated the fact that the guilds of the 
great Flemish communes were a power to be 
reckoned with. Obviously, when the greatest 
monarch of the day had been so decisively beaten 
there was no longer any question as to the rela- 
tive importance of the guilds and the local Counts 
of Flanders. The latter, though still figuring 
prominently in the history of the time, were 
unable to cope with the might of their united 
subjects, and only by the help of their over- 
lords of France, by bribery and even by down- 
right treachery, were they able to maintain 
themselves on their tottering thrones at all. 
This period is the most interesting in the long 
history of Flanders, for it was during the four- 
teenth century that the land of the Flemings 

192 



Ghent Governed by Guilds 193 

just missed becoming a nation, and, possibly, a 
republic. That it failed was due to the fact 
that, while there existed a splendid and indomi- 
table spirit of freedom in every true Flemish 
breast, the sense of loyalty was local instead of 
national. To his guild and his commune the 
Fleming was intensely loyal, but his patriotism 
— fine as it was — was too narrow. Each com- 
mune acted solely for itself, uniting with the 
others in time of great and impending peril, 
but often sending its armies to fight a sister 
commune over some trifling dispute as soon as 
the common danger was over. The princes 
were able, by cunningly taking advantage of 
this defect in the Flemish character, to play 
one commune against another and, by dividing 
the hosts of the guildsmen, to establish finally 
a tyranny too powerful to be thrown otf. For 
one hundred and fifty years after the Battle of 
the Spurs, however, the guilds — although now 
and then temporarily defeated — were, in the 
main, supreme throughout the length and 
breadth of Flanders, and it was still another 
century before the last spark of civic freedom 
at Ghent was finally extinguished. 

Two days after the great fight at Courtrai 
the victors, headed by the redoubtable Peter de 
Coninck, William of Juliers and Guy of Namur, 



194 The Spell of Flanders 



entered the city of Ghent and ' ' converted ' ' the 
too lukewarm magistrates to the popular side. 
The patrician Liliaerts were expelled from the 
magistracy and many were killed or driven 
from the city. The Count fought stubbornly 
on, nor did the war with France end immedi- 
ately, but in almost every instance the guilds- 
men were able to maintain the results of their 
great victory and firmly establish the founda- 
tion of their power. In the government of the 
commune of Ghent their voice was a potent one. 
Naturally the wool-spinners and weavers were 
the dominant organisations, while the petits- 
metiers, or minor industries, were also repre- 
sented. 

The apprentice system was rigidly enforced 
among all the guilds, but the policy of the or- 
ganisations was liberal in this respect — for 
example, an apprentice was often sent for a 
year's journey in other cities or countries in 
order to obtain a wider knowledge of his craft. 
The guildsmen had a hearty and honest pride 
in good and skilful workmanship, and the offi- 
cers of the guilds supervised the quality of the 
goods turned out and imposed penalties for 
poor workmanship or the use of inferior mate- 
rials. Each guild had its own house or meet- 
ing-place, and while the fine guild houses on the 




Photograph by E. Sacre. 

POST OFFICE, CHURCH OF ST. NICHOLAS, BELFRY AND 
CATHEDRAL, GHENT. 



Ghent Governed by Guilds 195 

Marche aux Grains date from a somewhat later 
period, they were no donbt preceded by earlier 
structures. It was one of the dreams of the 
Professor to rummage about in these ancient 
edifices, poring over the archives of the guilds 
and inspecting the rooms and halls where their 
ofttimes stormy meetings were held. In this 
he was destined to be disappointed, for while 
the exteriors of several of these historic build- 
ings have been carefully restored, the interiors 
are now devoted to private uses and contain lit- 
tle of interest to the visitor. The archives 
have been, for the most part, preserved in the 
ancient castle of Girard the Devil. Some of 
the old guild banners still exist, but the guild 
houses themselves are only the empty shells of 
the powerful organisations that once made them 
their homes. 

The most famous structure in Flanders dates 
from this epoch in the town's history. This 
is the Belfry that has looked down on the red 
roofs of Ghent for nearly six hundred years. 
The first Belfry was begun in 1183, but the 
present structure was built in 1313-1339, since 
when it has been several times modified and 
"restored" — not always successfully. The 
latest restoration was carried out by the mu- 
nicipal authorities as a preparation for the In- 



196 The Spell of Flanders 

ternational Exposition held at Ghent in 1913 
and was carefully and intelligently done. 
There are three hundred and fifty-five steps in 
the staircase by which visitors ascend the 
tower, and the climb is one that richly repays 
those who make it. On a clear day one can see 
beyond Bruges to the northwest, as far as Ant- 
werp to the east and Audenaerde to the south. 
So densely peopled is the Flemish plain that 
these great cities lie almost close enough to- 
gether to be within sound of great Roland. 

This was the renowned bell which the bur- 
ghers of Ghent had cast and hung high on their 
Belfry as an emblem of the city's freedom 
from tyranny and a tocsin to summon the 
sturdy giiildsmen to its defence when danger 
threatened. It bore the following inscription 
in Flemish : 

Myiien naem is Roelant, als ick clippe dan ist brant 
Als icke luyde, dan ist stoi-m in Vlaenderlandt. 

Freely translated, this is what the bell gave as 
its autobiography: 

My name is Roland; when I speak softly there is fire at 

hand, 
But when I roar loudly it means war in Flanderland. 

The original Roland was cast in 1314, or 
twelve years after the Battle of the Spurs. It 



Ghent Governed by Guilds 197 

weighed twelve thousand, five hundred pounds 
and was the pride of the city, but was de- 
stroyed by order of Charles V when he forced 
the burghers abjectly to submit to his despot- 
ism in 1540. 

In the lower part of the tower is the ' ' secret 
room " where from 1402 the burghers kept, be- 
hind triple doors as at Bruges, the charters 
and privileges of the city. The famous dragon 
at the tip of the spire was for centuries said to 
have been brought from the Orient at the time 
of Baldwin of Constantinople, but recent re- 
searches in the archives of the city have shown 
that it was made at Ghent in the year 1377-78. 
Adjoining the Belfry is the Cloth -Hall erected 
for the most important of the city's four hun- 
dred guilds. The upper hall is now used as a 
Bureau of Information for Tourists, while the 
lower one is a Bathskeller. Here the columns 
and vaulted roof greatly resemble the crypt of 
Girard the Devil's castle, save that the little 
tables and excellent Munich and Pilsen to be 
had there make it decidedly more cheerful. 
The edifice was begun in 1425 and finished, or, 
at least, the work was stopped, in 1441. Be- 
hind the Cloth Hall, but nestling close against 
it, is the quaint little entrance to the communal 
prison, which was built in 1741 when the pris- 



198 The Spell of Flanders 

oners were confined on the lower floor of tlie 
Cloth Hall. Over the door at the top of the 
facade is the celebrated bas-relief representing 
the legend of the Mammelokker. The carving 
really tells all there is to the story ; which is, in 
brief, that, on one occasion, when an old man 
was condemned to die of starvation, his daugh- 
ter — who just then had a baby whom she was 
nursing — secretly gave the breast to her aged 
parent, thus saving his life. 

While the Belfry was being built by the bur- 
ghers of Ghent, France and England were 
drifting into the Hundred Years' War. The 
Count of Flanders, Louis de Nevers, was ar- 
dently loyal to France and utterly blind to the 
interests of the great woollen manufacturing 
communes over which he ruled and to those of 
his own dynasty. In 1336, no doubt at the in- 
stance of the King of France, he ordered all 
the English merchants in Flanders to be ar- 
rested and their goods confiscated. The King 
of England, Edward III, promptly retaliated 
by prohibiting th^ exportation of wool from 
England to Flanders and the sale of Flemish 
woollens in his Kingdom. In a few months the 
Flemish communes of Ghent, Bruges and Ypres 
found themselves facing utter ruin as a result 
of this economic conflict. The spinners and 



Ghent Governed by Guilds 199 

weavers were idle, the markets deserted, actual 
starvation existed, and many of the guildsmen 
were forced to wander off into the countryside 
to heg for food. 

It was at this critical moment that the great 
figure of Jacques Van Artevelde appears upon 
the stage of Flemish history. Son of a rich 
wool and cloth merchant who had been long 
prominent among the Clauwaerts, or foes of 
French domination, Jacques Van Artevelde was 
a man of wealth and position who by ancestry 
and calling was inclined to the popular rather 
than the aristocratic side. On December 28, 
1337, he harangued the men of Bruges in be- 
half of peace with England, in spite of the 
obstinate and fatuous policy of the Count. As 
a result of his eloquence, abundantly enforced 
by the ruin and misery then prevailing on 
every side, the people decided unanimously to 
establish a revolutionary government, which 
was accomplished peacefully on the third of the 
following month. Van Artevelde was recog- 
nised as the foremost of the five captains then 
chosen to administer the government of the 
city, and was given a larger guard than his col- 
leagues. The helpless Count of Flanders, un- 
able to resist, was obliged to ratify the new 
policy of the burghers, and by the middle of 



200 The Spell of Flanders 

the year 1338 the embargo was formally raised 
on both sides, the woollen industry started up 
once more, and Flanders was declared to be 
neutral as regarded the contest between its two 
powerful neighbours. In short, the wise policy 
of Van Artevelde was completely triumphant 
and the country again placed on the road to re- 
newed prosperity. 

Under the direction of the great tribune the 
weavers were now the dominant factor in the 
government of Ghent, and soon the influence of 
Van Artevelde made itself felt in Bruges, 
Ypres and all the other Flemish communes, 
where the guild leaders became likewise the 
heads of the magistracy. The Count strove to 
reassert his power, but Van Artevelde stormed 
the Castle and the prince was forced to accom- 
pany the men of Ghent to the annual proces- 
sion at Tournai wearing their colours. The 
'' White Hoods," as the warriors of the popu- 
lar party were called, destroyed the castles of 
several of the lesser nobility who dared to 
resist their authority and throughout all the 
land Van Artevelde reigned supreme. Edward 
III, after vainly endeavouring to win the Count 
of Flanders to his side by flattering jnatrimo- 
nial offers, ended by treating directly with Van 
Artevelde as if with a sovereign prince. 



Grhent G-overned by Guilds 201 

It was the genius of the great Ghent captain 
that conceived the brilliant idea of overcoming 
the reluctance of the Flemish communes to take 
sides with England against their feudal suze- 
rain, the King of France, by having Edward 
claim the crown of France, and it was in con- 
sequence of his arguments that the English 
monarch finally took this bold but adroit step. 
On the 26th of January, 1340, the communes 
formally recognised Edward as their suzerain 
on the Marche du Vendredi at Ghent — one of 
the many great events that have taken place on 
that historic spot. The King made Ghent his 
headquarters, and it was in the old Castle of 
the Counts that his third son, known in English 
history as John of Gaunt (Ghent), was born. 
In the same year occurred the great Battle of 
Sluys, in which Edward III led the English 
ships of war into the harbour of that town 
where the French King Philip had assembled a 
vast fleet. The defeated Frenchmen leaped 
overboard in hundreds only to be slain by the 
Flemings as they swam ashore. No man dared 
tell the King of France of this great disaster 
until the royal jester broke the news by ex- 
claiming, '' The English cowards! Oh, the 
English cowards! " On the King's inquiring 
what he meant by this, the jester replied, 



202 The Spell of Flanders 

'' They were afraid to jump into tlie sea as our 
brave Frenchmen did at Sluys ! ' ' 

This brilliant year, however, saw the climax 
of the power of Van Artevelde. Already the 
other Flemish communes were beginning to 
grumble at his rule, outbreaks occurring at 
Audenaerde, Dendermonde and Ypres. King 
Edward began to besiege Tournai with the aid 
of Van Artevelde, but on the French King 
agreeing to a truce he returned to England, 
leaving his faithful ally to take care of himself 
as best he could. To make matters more diffi- 
cult, he failed to pay the subsidies he had prom- 
ised, and the tribune was violently accused of 
having played the people false. Meanwhile the 
guildsmen began to dispute between themselves, 
and on Monday, May 2, 1345, in spite of the 
entreaties of Van Artevelde, the fullers and 
weavers engaged in a bloody battle on the 
Marche du Vendredi in which the former with 
their Doyen, or leader, were massacred. This 
sad day was called the Kwade Maendag, or Bad 
Monday. 

Early in July Van Artevelde had a last inter- 
view with Edward at Sluys. On his return to 
Ghent a mob of malcontents, led by men in the 
pay of Count Louis of Nevers, besieged the 
great tribune in his house, crying that he had 



Ghent Governed by Guilds 203 

betrayed the country. After vainly trying to 
argne with, them, he reluctantly permitted him- 
self to be drawn away from the window by his 
followers, who sought to persuade him to seek 
safety in flight. It was too late, however, as 
the mob had already burst into the house and 
one of them struck Van Artevelde dead on his 
own threshold. For nearly nine years he had 
been virtually a king in Flanders, his policy 
bringing unexampled prosperity to the country 
and to his native city. 

Although often called a demagogue and a ty- 
rant, Jacques Van Artevelde ranks as one 
of the foremost statesmen of his time. He 
died the '' victim of a faction " and of treach- 
ery rather than a popular revolt against his 
policies, for the English alliance was stead- 
fastly continued after his death. To-day his 
statue stands on the Marche du Vendredi, 
where, in 1340, he burned the papal interdict 
against Flanders. It represents him in the act 
of delivering the famous speech by which he 
won the allegiance of his fellow citizens to the 
English alliance. Count Louis profited little 
by his treachery, for a little over a year later, 
August 26, 1346, he fell in the great battle of 
Crecy where the English archers, fighting by 
the side of many Flemish guildsmen, gave the 



204 The Spell of Flanders 

death blow to mediaeval cliivalry and utterly 
crushed the power of France. 

The weavers, who under Van Artevelde had 
become the dominant power in all of the Flem- 
ish communes, soon had good reason to regret 
his fall, for the new Count, Louis of Maele — 
named like most of the Counts of Flanders 
from the place where he was born, the great 
castle of Maele — was able by liberal promises 
and the restoration of ancient charters and privi- 
leges to win the support of most of the cities. 
At Ghent the butchers, fish merchants, and 
boatmen's guilds submitted, followed by the 
fullers and minor industries. The weavers, al- 
though their numbers had been greatly reduced 
by the plague, held out stubbornly, but were 
massacred on the Marche du Vendredi, Tues- 
day, January 13, 1349, their captain and their 
Doyen, Gerard Denys — the man who had slain 
Van Artevelde — being flung into the Lys. 
The victors called this bloody day De Goede 
Disendach, or Good Tuesday, and it certainly 
amply revenged the Bad Monday four years be- 
fore when the weavers were the aggressors. 
The members of the unfortunate guild were now 
hunted down like dogs throughout all Flanders, 
great numbers fleeing to England where they 
established the weaving industry — King Ed- 



Ghent Governed by Guilds 205 

ward wisely welcoming the exiles and giving 
them every aid in his power to settle in his 
Kingdom. Later the competition of these fugi- 
tives and their descendants gave Flanders good 
cause to rue the folly of the internal strife that 
thus drove away some of the best workmen in 
the country. 

The numerical superiority of this guild, how- 
ever, and the fact that its members were neces- 
sarily more skilled than the fullers, led to its 
gradual recovery, and by 1359 the weavers were 
again admitted to a share in the government 
of the communes and the fullers were relegated 
to the inferior position to which their smaller 
numbers and less skilled work entitled them. 
Louis of Maele made Bruges virtually his cap- 
ital, but during the greater part of his reign of 
forty years was able to continue on fairly 
peaceful terms with the turbulent city of Grhent 
by means of a careful and detailed adjustment 
of the order of precedence between the various 
guilds which was devised about .the year 1352 
and continued in effect for nearly two centu- 
ries. In 1369 the daughter of the Count mar- 
ried Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy and 
brother of the King of France — an event full 
of dire significance for the guildsmen as it led 
to their having, in after years, the powerful 



206 The Spell of Flanders 

Dukes of Burgundy as their over-lords instead 
of the comparatively feeble Counts of Flanders. 
In 1377 Count Louis held a great tournament 
in the Marche du Vendredi. Despite the long 
conflict between the guilds the city was at this 
period very prosperous. 

The Count, however, who was always short 
of money, sold to the citizens of Bruges the 
right to construct a canal from their port to the 
River Lys. At this Ghent, headed by the Boat- 
men's Guild, flew to arms and a civil war broke 
out in 1379, the men of Ghent fearing that they 
might lose their monopoly of the grain traffic. 
After various successes and reverses the Count 
besieged the city and had very nearly reduced 
it by starvation when Philip Van Artevelde, 
son of the famous tribune, came forward and 
was made Captain-General of the city, in 1382. 
The new leader, and a motley crowd of five 
thousand half-starved followers, marched on 
Bruges, where the Count, at the head of a host 
of over forty thousand, attacked them under 
the walls of the city. The larger army, how- 
ever, was a mere rabble — over-confident and 
half intoxicated — and Van Artevelde won a 
complete victory. The Count of Flanders was 
compelled to hide for the night under a heap of 
straw in a poor woman's hovel, and later es- 



Ghent G-overned by Guilds 207 

caped to Lille and so to France. Van Arte- 
velde treated the captured city with generosity 
and was soon captain of all Flanders. His next 
battle was with the King of France, hut this 
time he was less fortunate, and at Eosbecque, 
November 27, 1382, the Flemish host was cut 
to pieces and its leader slain. Louis of Maele 
himself died two years later, leaving the repu- 
tation of being the worst and weakest of the 
line of Flemish Counts, as well as the last. It 
was at his request that the French had invaded 
the country, which they swept with fire and 
sword after the defeat of the Flemish guilds- 
men, but the victory was of no benefit to the 
broken-down old man who no longer dared to 
show himself in Flanders and died at Paris in 
poverty and neglect. 

As an offset to these remarks regarding the 
weakness of Louis of Maele it is only fair to 
that worthy to relate a little legend generally 
attributed to his reign. It is said that on a 
certain occasion the magistrates of Ghent — 
which was at the time renowned as the most 
opulent city in Europe — were invited to a 
great feast given in honour of some foreign 
king. Those in charge of the arrangements 
forgot, however, to put cushions on the chairs 
and the men of Ghent accordingly threw their 



208 The Spell of Flanders 

richly embroidered cloaks upon them, and re- 
tired when the feast was over without putting 
them on again. When reminded of this the 
Chief Magistrate replied, " The Flemings are 
not accustomed to carry their cushions with 
them." Not only the grandees but the bour- 
geois citizens at this period were said to wear 
purple and fine linen. The baths, '' stooven," 
frequented by both sexes, became the scenes of 
great vice and disorder and one ancient chroni- 
cler reports an incredible number of murders 
as occurring during a single year at gaming 
tables and drinking places. All this would 
seem to show that Louis of Maele was not so 
bad a sovereign — for at least the country 
prospered mider his rule — but in reality he 
had, as we have seen, very little to do either 
with the actual government or public policy 
during his long reign. 

No visitor to Ghent fails to take a look at De 
Dulle Griete, or " Mad Margery," Philip Van 
Artevelde's big cannon that stands in the Man- 
nekens Aert. According to Froissart, Van Ar- 
tevelde took with him to the siege of Audenaerde 
' ' a bombard which was fifty feet in length, and 
shot stones of immense weight. When they 
fired off this bombard it might be heard five 
leagues off in the daytime, and ten at night. 



Ghent Governed by Guilds 209 

The report of it was so loud, that it seemed as 
if all the devils in hell had broken loose." 
Mad Margery seems to have shrunk considera- 
bly since Froissart's time, for she is now nine- 
teen feet long and three feet in diameter at the 
mouth. The gun was made of wrought iron and 
weighs thirty-four thousand, one hundred and 
sixty-six pounds, and was capable of throwing 
a stone weighing seven hundred and eight 
pounds. 

Another interesting monument dating from 
the same period in the city's history as the Bel- 
fry is the Hospital of the Biloque or Biloke. 
Some of the buildings are of much more recent 
construction, but the Gothic chapel was built 
early in the thirteenth century, apparently 
about 1228, with a double gable and immense 
timber roof. The former Refectory offers an 
example of early brick work at one of its ends, 
le heau pignon, that is a joy to architects, 
and has often been described and illustrated in 
the technical books. The timber roof of this 
structure is also noteworthy. It is now used 
as a hospital for old men. This edifice is a cen- 
tury later than the chapel, while some of the 
other buildings date from the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries. 

Grhent contains two Beguinages, a circum- 



210 The Spell of Flanders 

stance that gives not a little trouble to visitors 
who in trying to visit one are about always — 
at least that was our experience on two occa- 
sions — directed to the other. Both are large, 
but one is more notable for its antiquity and 
the other for its size and the perfection of its 
appointments. The first Beguinage in Ghent 
was founded by Jeanne of Constantinople in 
1233 as a place of refuge for women disciples 
of the church who in those evil days felt the 
need of protection, but did not desire to enter 
the conventual life. Little houses sprang up 
and the institution proved so popular that a 
second Beguinage was soon established which 
came to be called the Petit Beguinage. Pro- 
tected by the successive Counts, and particu- 
larly by the patronage of the Countesses of 
Flanders, both institutions flourished and ex- 
panded steadily. The present Petit Beguinage 
de Notre Dame dates largely from the seven- 
teenth century, and the Chapel and streets of 
tiny houses inhabited by the Beguines are most 
picturesque. It has accommodations for three 
hundred sisters. The Grrand Beguinage de 
Ste. Elisabeth was confiscated during the 
French Eevolution and the property presented 
to the almshouses of the city of Ghent. The 
Committee in charge of the almshouses suffered 



Ghent Governed by Guilds 211 

the Beguines to remain undisturbed, however, 
until 1872 when strained relations resulting 
from this arrangement led to the Beguines giv- 
ing up their estahlishment, whi<}h was mod- 
ernized by the authorities and many of its in- 
teresting features destroyed. The church re- 
mains, having become a parish church, and the 
rue des Prebendieres retains its original ap- 
pearance. Meanwhile, the Duke of Arenberg 
purchased ground for a new Grande Beguinage 
at Mont St. Amand, and here a little city of 
small houses, designed in fifteenth-century 
Flemish style, and a new chapel were erected, 
the work being completed in 1874. 

We spent a very charming afternoon visiting 
the Grande Beguinage. Passing through the 
lofty gateway we were greeted by the pleasant- 
faced BegTiine who receives all visitors and who 
directed us how to reach the buildings we were 
permitted to see. As at Bruges, the cells were 
not shown to visitors. Altogether at St. Amand 
there are fourteen '^ convents " and eighty 
houses, the former accommodating twenty or 
thirty inmates and the latter two or three, with 
occasionally some lady from the outer world 
who is taken as a lodger. Each little house is 
numbered and also has a name, usually that of 
some saint. Arriving at the convent we had 



212 The Spell of Flanders 

been permitted to visit we were first conducted 
down a long, clean corridor, painted a glaring 
white, to a parlour or reception room, of wliich 
there appear to be several. Then, after the 
Lady Superior had been notified of our presence 
and had come to welcome us, we were taken to 
the refter, or dining-room. The inventor of 
the kitchen cabinet could have taken points 
from this curious apartment. Along the walls 
and between the windows are a dozen or more 
cupboards, of which one belongs to each Be- 
guine. Here she keeps her napkins, dishes and 
cooking utensils, and even her bread and pro- 
visions. A board can be pulled out near the 
middle, which serves as a table. These cup- 
boards are so constructed that no Beguine can 
see into that of her neighbour, and apparently 
they take their meals one at a time, as one was 
eating her frngal repast when we entered, and 
when we passed through the room again a little 
later her little private refectory was closed and 
another one was seated at her little shelf or 
table. Adjoining this queer dining-room was a 
large kitchen, with an extremely big cook stove, 
on which a half-dozen little pots were simmer- 
ing gently. One Beguine, we were told, has the 
duty of attending to the kitchen for three weeks, 
then another, each taking turns. The Beguines 



Ghent Governed by Guilds 213 

prepare their own meals to suit themselves, the 
one in charge of the kitchen merely looking 
after the actual process of cooking. 

We next visited the workroom, where a group 
of Beguines were busily engaged in making lace. 
The bright sunshine streaming through the 
large windows on the silent group of workers, 
each clad in her sombre garb of black and 
white, made a pretty picture. All seemed to be 
care-free and contented, though the expression 
on their faces could hardly be described as one 
of happiness. As in all conventual institutions, 
the inmates are required to go through quite a 
series of devotional exercises from morning 
mass to the Benediction Night Prayers. The 
scene in the little chapel attached to each con- 
vent, or in the large chapel of the entire Be- 
guinage, when the sisters are assembled for 
service is a very picturesque one and gives the 
visitor an impression likely long to be remem- 
bered. 

Speaking of the peculiar dining customs of 
the.BegTiines reminds me that in Flanders the 
judicious should not overlook the importance 
of doing justice to the culinary treats that are 
provided by even the little hotels. For those 
travellers who look upon eating as one of the 
disagreeable necessities of existence, to be 



214 The Spell of Flanders 

shirked or evaded as far as possible, and, in any 
event, to be hurried through with quickly lest 
something be overlooked that the immortal Mr. 
Baedeker said must be seen, this is one feature 
of Flemish life that will make no appeal. On 
the other hand, for those who are neither men- 
tally nor bodily dyspeptic; who agree with the 
French aphorism that * ' the animals feed, while 
man eats "; and who are still able to enjoy a 
good meal well planned, well cooked, and well 
served, a trip through Flanders will bring a 
new pleasure every day. A peep into any 
Flemish kitchen will convince the most sceptical 
that here, at all events, one's stomach is not 
likely to be forgotten. Pots and kettles, cas- 
seroles and pans, pitchers and jugs, large and 
small, hang around the walls or rest upon long 
shelves — all of brightly polished copper and 
ready for instant service. 

The great meal of the day in all parts of 
Flanders is the dinner, and it cuts the day in 
two — coming between noon and two o'clock 
and usually lasting an hour or more. The 
evening meal, or supper, is much less impor- 
tant, save in a few hotels catering largely to 
tourists. To get up a real Flemish dinner, 
cooked and served in the best style of which the 
Flemish cooks are capable, the housewife first 



Grhent Governed by Guilds 215 

ascertains when the local butcher has fresh- 
killed meat and plans accordingly. Vegetables 
in Flanders are always good, in their respective 
seasons, but to get the finest quality of meats 
one must buy just after the butcher has made a 
killing. To Americans, who have been accus- 
tomed all their lives to, eat meat that has been 
kept on ice, it almost seems as though one has 
never tasted a roast of beef or a shoulder of 
mutton before — so deliciously sweet, tender 
and juicy are they when cooked and eaten be- 
fore the ice has robbed them of their richness 
and flavour. 

It was while we were browsing around Ghent 
that the ladies discovered a bit of handicraft 
that seems worth mentioning. We subsequently 
saw the same thing at Brussels and Antwerp, 
so that it appears to be distinctly a Belgian 
industry. In a large window they noticed two 
women engaged in what from over the way 
might have been taken for lace-making. Mrs. 
Professor hurried across at once to investigate 
and she and the Madame spent half an hour 
watching the operation. Each of the two 
women was engaged in repairing, the one a pair 
of trousers and the other an overcoat. In each 
case the repair consisted of literally weaving 
a new segment of cloth in place of the damaged 



X 



216 The Spell of Flanders 

portion. First cutting out all of the latter they 
frayed out an edge of the goods at some point 
where there was sufficient material turned 
under for their purpose. This done they took 
short strands of each of the various coloured 
yarns and, with infinite patience and skill, wove 
them together in an exact reproduction of the 
design of the original textile. So cleverly was 
the work done that when completed the repara- 
tion could not be detected. It is possible that 
repairing of this kind is done in America but 
none of us had ever seen or heard of it. In 
Belgium it seemed to be fairly common, be- 
ing styled Reparation invisible, and the price 
varying from one to three or four francs for 
each hole repaired, according to the nature of 
the goods and the design. We also saw rugs 
being repaired in the same manner, as well as 
ladies' dress goods of every description. 

It is one of the most deplorable features of 
the war that its most fearful destructiveness 
should have been wreaked upon a little country 
where every small economy and patient utilisa- 
tion of trifles had been practised for centuries. 
All Belgium is pre-eminently a land of thrift, 
of painstaking husbanding of small resources, 
and to beggar half the population of such a 
country means a calamity to each family group 



Ghent Governed by Guilds 217 

and individual far more poignant than would be 
the case where frugality was less deeply in- 
grained as a national characteristic. 




CHAPTER XI 

PHILIP THE GOOD AND THE VAIST EYCKS 

'S the sunset is often the most beautiful 
hour of the day, so the splendour of 
the old Flemish communes reached its 
zenith at the moment when many of them 
were about to sink into their long sleep. This 
was the period of Burgundian rule. Upon the 
death of Louis of Maele the County of Flan- 
ders ceased to be a separate sovereignty, as it 
had been since Baldwin of the Iron Arm, for 
the husband of Margaret, the old Count's 
daughter, was Duke of Burgundy and brother 
of the King of France — a foreign prince whose 
interests in France far out-weighed in his mind 
his interests in Flanders. The new ruler, 
Philip the Bold, was acknowledged as Count of 
Flanders in 1384, but was only able to enter 
Audenaerde by stratagem after a siege, and was 
defied openly by the sturdy burghers of Ghent. 
The following year, however, Philip effected a 
family union by which he virtually controlled 
the two important States of Brabant and Hai- 

218 



Philip the Good and the Van Eycks 219 

naut. His eldest son was married to Margaret, 
daughter of the Eegent of Hainant, while the 
latter 's son married Philip's daughter. These 
marriages were celebrated at Cambrai, in April, 
1385, and at the same time the Duchess of Bra- 
bant recognised Philip's second son as heir to 
the Duchy. Brabant at that time was less rich 
and powerful than Flanders, but its chief cities, 
Brussels and Louvain, were- growing rapidly. 
Hainaut, on the other hand, had been termed by 
one of its leaders '' a poor country of proud 
men ' ' — its chief cities, Mons and Valenciennes, 
being places of third-rate importance, and its 
present vast mineral wealth then undreamed of. 
The marriages of Cambrai are worth remem- 
bering, however, as explaining the rapidity with 
which the House of Burgundy extended its 
sway over nearly all of what is now Belgium. 

Ghent still resisted its new Count, but an 
army of one hundred thousand French and Bur- 
gundians — gathered primarily to invade Eng- 
land — destroyed the seaport of Damme, which 
had been rebuilt since its previous destruction 
by the French, and plundered '' the Four 
Trades," as the fertile region thereabout was 
called. Ghent, however, had suffered enough 
to make it sue for peace and acknowledge Phil- 
ip's sovereignty. The invasion of England 



220 The Spell of Flanders 

project came to nothing — as have so many 
others before and since — but it had at least 
enabled Philip to establish his power in Flan- 
ders. 

On Philip's death in 1404, he was succeeded 
by his son, John the Fearless (as the old chroni- 
clers call him). The life of this prince belongs 
to the history of France rather than Flanders, 
as he had little use for his Flemish towns except 
to extort money from their burghers — who 
granted him such sums as he required on his 
renewing acknowledgment of their liberties and 
privileges. In 1407 John caused the murder of 
his great rival in the government of France, the 
Duke of Orleans. Then came the battle of 
Agincourt, where the power of France was 
ruined by Henry the Fifth, and in 1419 the son 
of the Duke of Orleans avenged the murder of 
his father twelve years previously by murder- 
ing John the Fearless at Montereau. 

The son of John the Fearless was Philip, 
called by the chroniclers " the Good." A bet- 
ter term would have been '* the Magnificent," 
for goodness was hardly his chief characteris- 
tic. The murder of his father caused Philip to 
take the side of England in the long conflict be- 
tween that country and France that was still 
raging — a policy that pleased his Flemish com- 



Philip the G-ood and the Van Eycks 221 

munes, which depended for their prosperity on 
the wool trade. Meanwhile Philip took advan- 
tage of the matrimonial difficulties of Jacque- 
line of Bavaria, Countess of Hainaut and Hol- 
land, to compel that beautiful but unfortunate 
princess to abdicate in his favour. The dun- 
geon in the Castle of the Counts at Ghent, where 
the fair Jacqueline was for a time confined, has 
already been mentioned. He also succeeded in 
making himself Duke of Brabant, thus uniting 
in his own person the government of these rich 
provinces with that of Flanders and Burgundy 
and his other possessions in France. 

In 1430 Philip married the Princess Isabel 
of Portugal, a great-granddaughter of John, 
Duke of Lancaster. This marriage cemented 
the English alliance, and the English made 
Philip Eegent of France, over which they still 
claimed sovereignty. It was Philip who cap- 
tured and indirectly caused the execution of 
Jeanne d'Arc at the darkest period of French 
history. 

The now all-powerful Duke of Burgundy sig- 
nalized his marriage by establishing at Bruges 
the famous Order of the Grolden Fleece. This 
consisted of himself, as founder and sovereign 
prince, and twenty-four knights — naturally the 
highest in the land — and in renown and lustre 



222 The Spell of Flanders 

the new order quickly took rank as the very 
pinnacle of mediaeval chivalry. Membership 
was an honour than which there was none 
higher, while members also enjoyed a personal 
security against the tyranny of princes in being 
amenable only to their comrades of the order. 
The head of such an institution naturally ex- 
erted powers equal, and, in some respects, 
superior, to those of any crowned monarch. 
The fetes with which Philip celebrated the es- 
tablishment of the order were without precedent 
in the history of Europe for magnificence, and 
the old city of Bruges was for days thronged 
with the bravest knights and the fairest ladies 
to be found in the Duke's widespread domin- 
ions. 

Up to this date the policy of Philip had coin- 
cided with the interests of his great communes 
in Flanders and his popularity throughout the 
county was unbounded. Not only did friend- 
ship with England protect and stimulate trade 
between the two countries, but the misery and 
ruin of France also contributed to extend the 
commerce of the great towns just over the fron- 
tier whose trade and industries were unmo- 
lested. In 1435 Philip concluded the treaty of 
Arras with Charles VII, King of France, by 
which, for the sake of peace, the French King 



Philip the Good and the Van Eycks 223 

ceded to liim a number of counties in France 
and made him, during Ms lifetime at least, an 
independent prince owing no homage to the 
French Crown. This treaty naturally enraged 
the English, who at once declared war on Bur- 
gundy, destroying many Burgundian vessels 
and raiding its coast towns. In revenge Duke 
Philip marched on Calais with an army of thirty 
thousand Flemings whom he induced to join 
in the war against their ancient ally chiefly 
through their confidence in his good intentions 
and against their own better judgment. The 
siege proved to be a long one, and the Flemings 
becoming discontented finally set fire to their 
camp and crying, " Go, go, wy zyn all verman- 
den! " ("Go, go, we are all betrayed!") 
marched back to Flanders, leaving their Duke 
raging at his discomfiture. 

This fiasco determined Philip to adopt a new 
policy toward the communes and compel them 
to obey his orders. On May 22, 1437, he 
camped outside of the city of Bruges with a con- 
siderable force of knights and Picard footmen, 
informing the burghers that he was on his way 
to Holland. The next day, telling his men ' ' That 
is the Holland we have come to conquer! " as 
he pointed to the city, Philip led his forces to 
the market-place. The tocsin in the old belfry 



224 The Spell of Flanders 

instantly sounded the alarm, and angry guilds- 
men and burghers came pouring down the nar- 
row streets in thousands. Philip 's small force, 
taken at a disadvantage, was forced to retreat 
to one of the gates. It was shut, its heavy bolts 
securely drawn. Already some of the French 
force had been killed, and in a few moments the 
Duke himself would have perished but for Bur- 
gomaster Van de "VValle, who brought a smith 
and broke the lock. The Duke escaped with 
most of his followers, but many who were 
caught in the rear lost their lives. This was 
the Bruges Vespers — to distinguish it from 
Bruges Matin, the year of the Battle of the 
Spurs. 

Philip now set about humbling the proud city 
in grim earnest, cutting off the commerce upon 
which its prosperity depended, and even its 
food supplies. To add to the horrors of the 
siege the plague broke out within the city, while 
leprosy was also prevalent. No less than twen- 
ty-four thousand died of pestilence and famine 
before the brave burghers at last gave in. 
Philip's terms were hard. The city officials 
were required to meet him bareheaded and bare- 
footed the next time he deigned to visit the de- 
feated commune, and on their knees give him 
the keys of the city. A heavy fine was imposed 



Philip the Good and the Van Eycks 225 

and forty-two leading burghers were excluded 
from amnesty and beheaded — including Van de 
Walle, who had saved his life at the Bouverie 
gate. This was the ** Great Humiliation," as it 
is sometimes called, but — finding that contin- 
ued hostility to the chief trading centre in his 
dominions was driving foreign traders away — 
the Duke now took Bruges again into his favour 
and never again molested it during his long 
reign. 

The proud city of Ghent was the next to feel 
the weight of the powerful Duke 's displeasure. 
Eebelling in 1448 against the imposition of a 
tax on salt, called the gabelle, the city defied the 
Duke's authority for five years. Meanwhile 
Philip gradually cut off its supplies, as he had 
done with Bruges. Ghent was more populous, 
however, and its burgher armies took the field 
and carried open war as far as Audenaerde, 
which they besieged. Several small battles 
were fought, the advantage resting mainly with 
the Duke, until on July 23, 1453, the decisive 
conflict took place. The Duke's forces were en- 
camped at Gavre, a few miles from the city. 
Spies within the gates told the burghers that it 
would be easy to surprise the camp and de- 
stroy Philip's army. The tocsin therefore was 
sounded and the hosts of guildsmen and bur- 



226 The Spell of Flanders 

ghers marched out to attack the enemy. The 
Duke 's forces, aware of the manner in which the 
Flemings were to be betrayed, were placed 
where the open ground favoured the Burgun- 
dian horsemen. In spite of this advantage, the 
contest was a stubborn one, both the Duke and 
his son Charles narrowly escaping death on one 
occasion. At last the Flemings began to give 
way, and the battle became a slaughter, more 
than twenty thousand of the guildsmen being 
slain on the field, while all prisoners were 
hanged. This struggle was called ' ' the red sea 
of Gavre." As the men of Ghent were fleeing 
toward their city Philip sought to pursue them 
by the shortest way and intercept their flight- 
He accordingly called for a guide. A peasant 
of the neighbourhood volunteered, and, after 
leading the Burgundian army across fields and 
by-paths for several hours, conducted the vic- 
tors — not to the gates of Ghent, but back to 
their own camp again! This nameless hero 
was incontinently hanged to the nearest tree, 
but he no doubt saved the city from pillage and 
rapine that night. 

Philip by this victory completely crushed the 
spirit of the communes, for none dared resist 
when Ghent the all-powerful had failed. He 
seems to have had at least a fleeting realisation, 



Philip the Good and the Van Eycks 227 

however, that victories of this sort were not 
matters for unmitigated satisfaction. The day 
after the battle the women of Ghent were 
searching the ghastly heaps of dead for the bod- 
ies of their husbands, their brothers and 
their lovers when Philip exclaimed — possibly 
touched by the sad sight — " I do not know who 
is the gainer by this victory. As for me, see 
what I have lost — for these were my sub- 
jects! " 

The privileges of Ghent were somewhat cur- 
tailed, and the dearly loved guild banners car- 
ried away by the conqueror, but Philip, on the 
whole, was very moderate. The obnoxious ga- 
belle, the cause of the war, was removed, and 
all citizens guaranteed their individual liberties. 
The following year, Philip, possibly to celebrate 
his now undisputed supremacy, gave a series of 
fetes at Lille that surpassed even those held on 
the occasion of his marriage at the foundation 
of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Upon one 
dining table stood a cathedral, with a choir sing- 
ing within; another held a huge pie, inside of 
which an orchestra of twenty-eight musicians 
played; a third contained a pantomime repre- 
senting Jason in search of the golden fleece. 
These fetes and tournaments lasted for days, 
and were the wonder of Europe. 



228 The Spell of Flanders 

During the remainder of liis reign of fifty 
years Pliilip never again had occasion to make 
war on his Flemish subjects, and while he seri- 
ously curtailed the power and importance of the 
communes, his rule was, on the whole, a period 
of great prosperity for Flanders. Both mer- 
chants and artisans were waxing rich, while the 
chief cities were being beautified on every hand. 
It was under Philip the Good that the cathedral 
at Antwerp was begun, and the town halls of 
Mons, Louvain and Brussels erected. It was 
also during his reign that William Caxton 
learned the art of printing at the house of Co- 
lard Manson at Bruges, but the prejudice of the 
burghers led to his banishment as a foreigner 
— thus depriving Bruges of the lustre of his 
achievements. The greatest event of Philip's 
reign, however, was one of which the glory is 
shared by both Bruges and Ghent — the estab- 
lishment in Flanders of the school of painters 
in oils whose masterpieces loom so large in the 
history of art.. 

Like most men whose commanding person- 
ality doininates the age in which they live, 
Philip the Good was many sided. The Profes- 
sor admires him because he was, in his judg- 
ment, one of the greatest constructive states- 
men of the Middle Ages — aiming steadily 



Philip the Good and the Van Eycks 229 

throughout his long reign to weld together, by 
fair means or foul, a compact Burgundian na- 
tion. On the other hand, I look upon him as a 
foe rather than a friend of true progress, be- 
cause he crushed the self-governing communes 
and guilds, the bulwarks of personal liberty in 
feudal Europe. Mrs. Professor cares nothing 
for either of these aspects of his career, but 
looks upon him as great for all time because he 
was an ardent friend and patron of the fine 
arts. 

In this she is undoubtedly right, for no 
greater glory belongs to any of the long line 
of princes who ruled over Flanders than that 
which is associated with his reign — the birth 
at Bruges of the art of painting with oils and 
of the wonderful school of painting repre- 
sented by the early Flemish masters. In his 
History of Flemish Painting Prof. A. J. 
Wauters recounts the names and some faint 
traces of the work of a few Flemish painters 
who lived prior to the period of Philip the 
Good. At Ghent there are two interesting 
frescoes dating from about the end of the thir- 
teenth century. At that city in 1337 the first 
guild of sculptors was organised, under the pat- 
ronage of St. Luke, and similar corporations 
were instituted at Tournai in 1341, in Bruges 



230 The Spell of Flanders 

in 1351, at Louvain by 1360 and Antwerp by 
1382. To this guild from the very earliest pe- 
riod the painters belonged, sometimes the gold- 
smiths and goldbeaters being also associated 
with them. In the same way the illuminators 
of Bruges and Ghent, and the tapestry workers 
of Arras, Tournai, Valenciennes and Brussels 
were organised into guilds, and these associa- 
tions of men whose work was in a high degree 
artistic soon resulted in the transformation of 
the artisan into the artist. 

Philip the Good was not the first of his line 
to give encouragement to art and artists. One 
Jehan de Hasselt was court painter to Count 
Louis of Maele, while at the same period the 
better known Jehan de Bruges was peintre 
et varlet de chambre for the King of France. 
By the end of the fourteenth century not only 
the great Dukes of Burgundy and the Kings 
of France but many minor princes had their 
chosen painters, imagers, illuminators and tap- 
estry workers. Philip the Bold, the first of the 
Dukes of Burgundy to rule over Flanders, re- 
tained his father-in-law's painter, Jehan de 
Hasselt, on his pay-roll for some time, and 
later employed a resident of Ypres, Melchior 
Broederlam, whose masterpiece was an altar- 
piece for the Carthusian monastery at Dijon 



Philip the Good and the Van Eycks 231 

founded by his patron. Part of this has been 
preserved and is now in the museum of Dijon. 
It is of interest as the first great painting of 
the early Flemish school and represents the 
Annunciation and Visitation, the Presentation 
in the Temple, and the Flight into Egypt. 
John the Fearless, the next Duke of Burgundy, 
likewise had his official painter, but it was not 
until the reign of Philip the Good that any of 
these Ducal artists, with the exception of 
Broederlam, achieved more than mediocre re- 
sults. 

The reason for this may have been the me- 
dium with which all painters in those days were 
accustomed to work. This was called tempera, 
the colours being mixed with water, the white 
of an egg or some other glutinous substance, 
then dried in the sun and varnished over. The 
colours, however, soon became dull and pale — 
often fading away altogether, especially in 
course of restoration — and the process of dry- 
ing was slow and unsatisfactory. To Flanders 
belongs the honour of the great discovery of 
the art of painting with oils that revolution- 
ised this branch of the fine arts and made the 
master-works of the artists of the brush im- 
perishable for all time. 

This epoch-making discovery, which is justly 



232 The Spell of Flanders 

looked upon as the birth of modern painting, 
was made by the two brothers Van Eyck about 
the year 1410. The early accounts attribute 
the invention wholly to Jean, the younger of 
the. two brothers, relating that on a certain oc- 
casion he had placed a painting on wood, which 
had cost him much time and labour, in the sun 
to dry when the heat of the sun caused it to 
crack. Seeing his work thus ruined at a blow 
Jean sought to find some substance that would 
obviate the necessity of drjdng his paintings 
in the sun and, after many experiments, dis- 
covered that linseed oil and nut oil were by far 
the most rapid in drying. He further found 
that the colours mixed better in oil than with 
the white of an egg or glue. They also had 
more body, a far richer lustre, were imper- 
meable to water and — what was best of all — 
dried just as well in the shade as in the sun. 
Later scholarship is not inclined to give the 
entire credit for this discovery to Jean alone, 
however, and his elder brother Hubert is 
looked upon by some as the one to whom the 
glory is due. Probably it was the joint result 
of innumerable experiments made by both, each 
profiting by the mistakes and successes of the 
other — just as was the case with the Wright 
brothers in perfecting the greatest invention of 



Philip the Good and the Van Eycks 23S 

our own times. There were, of course, other 
pioneers who contributed to the great discovery. 
The brothers were born at Maeseyck (Eyck- 
sur-Meuse) near Maestricht, and took the name 
of the village as their own in a way that was 
then very common. Literally they called them- 
selves Hubert and Jean of Eyck. They first 
obtained service under the prince-bishop of 
Liege, and were illuminators of manuscripts 
and statues as well as painters. The increas- 
ing wealth and luxury of Flanders under the 
Dukes of Burgundy drew the two brothers to 
that country and they appear to have been in 
the employ of the Count of Charolais, after- 
wards the Duke Philip the Good, at about the 
date assigned by the early historians as that 
when the art of painting with oils was dis- 
covered. The Count was residing at that time 
in the Chateau des Comtes at Ghent with his 
young wife Michelle, sister of the Duke of Or- 
leans. In 1419, when the news of the murder 
of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, by 
the Duke of Orleans on the bridge of Mon- 
tereau arrived at Ghent, Philip rushed into his 
wife's room crying, '' Michelle, Michelle! 
Your brother has killed my father! " The 
shock of this terrible intelligence, and the sub- 
sequent suspicion of her husband that she knew 



234 The Spell of Flanders 

of the plot, caused the poor little French prin- 
cess to pine away and die two years later. As 
a tribute to her memory the guild of St. Luke 
was asked by the Duke to grant the freedom of 
the guild to her favourite painters, the two 
Van Eycks, which was done. 

Jean, however, did not remain at Ghent, but 
took service for a time under John of Bavaria, 
whose capital was at The Hague. In 1425 he 
became painter and varlet de chambre of Philip 
the Good, a position he retained until his death. 
For a time he seems to have travelled about 
with his ducal master, but he eventually set- 
tled at Bruges, where most of his best work 
was done. Hubert, meanwhile, remained at 
Ghent, painting for the rich burghers of that 
prosperous city. Here he presently received 
an order from Jodocus Vydts for an altar-piece 
for a chapel he had founded in the Cathedral 
of St. Bavon in his native city of Ghent. 
Hubert began work immediately, planned the 
great work and lived to partially complete it 
when overtaken by death in 1426. Hubert was 
recognised as a great painter in his day, the 
magistrates of Ghent on one occasion going in 
state to his studio to inspect a picture he was 
painting — which was no doubt the altar-piece 
for St. Bavon. He was, however, wholly for- 



Philip the Good and the Van Eycks 235 

gotten by early historians of art in Flanders, 
and it is only recently tliat he has been given 
his proper place as one of the first of the great 
masters of the Flemish school. 

The subject chosen by Hubert for the pro- 
posed altar-piece was the Adoration of the 
Lamb, and the artist, while true to the conven- 
tions of the age in which he lived, achieved a 
work that is still full of interest and charm. 
Like Shakespeare's plays this, the first great 
masterpiece of the Flemish school, belongs not 
to an age but to all time. In its entirety the 
work consists of twenty panels and comprises 
more than three hundred separate figures. 
How far it had been completed at Hubert's 
death there is no way to tell, although it is 
customary to attribute to him the architectural 
frame, the central panel showing the lamb, and 
the large upper panels. Other critics believe 
that Jean practically painted the whole pic- 
ture when he was commissioned by the donor 
to complete it. The books on Flemish art de- 
vote many pages to an analytical description of 
this picture,^ which was finally completed by 
Jean in 1432. The Duke Philip, his patron, 

1 See " The Early Flemish Painters," by J. A. Crowe and 
G, B. Cavalcaselle, pp. 491-63 ; and " Belgium, Its Cities," by 
Grant Allen, pp. 164-175. 



236 The Spell of Flanders 

and the magistrates of Bruges visited his 
studio in state to inspect the finished picture, 
which was afterwards publicly exhibited at 
Ghent. When it is considered that this is the 
very first painting in oil that has come down 
to us it is in every respect a most marvellous 
performance. The three large central panels 
in the upper portion are especially noble and 
impressive, that of '' God the Father," in the 
centre, being finely expressive of majesty and 
repose. In the panel to the left of the Virgin 
Mary is a group of youthful angels singing, 
who are so skilfully painted that *' one can 
readily tell from looking at them which is sing- 
ing the dominant, which the counter-tenor, and 
which the tenor and the bass," according to an 
early critic. We were told by a Belgian cure 
with whom we talked about this wonderful pic- 
ture shortly before our visit to Ghent that the 
work is so fine in its details that in the case 
of the figures in the foreground who are hold- 
ing open in their hands copies of the Scriptures 
the very passage at which each book is opened 
can be distinguished! We verified this re- 
markable assertion by the aid of a glass loaned 
us by an attendant. 

The subsequent history of the painting is in- 
teresting. Philip II, who carried many Flem- 




SINGING ANGELS PROM THE ADORA- 

TION OP THE LAMB. ' ' — JEAN VAN EYCK. 



Philip the Good and the Van Eycks 237 

ish masterpieces away to Spain, admired this 
one, but contented himself with a copy by 
Michel Coxcie, for which he paid four thousand 
ducats — which was quite likely more than the 
Van Eyck brothers received for the original. 
About 1578 the Calvinists of Grhent wished to 
present the painting to Queen Elizabeth in re- 
turn for her support of their sect. For a time 
it was placed in the Hotel de Ville at Ghent, 
but was finally restored to the cathedral. 
After several other escapes from destruction 
or shipment abroad the work was finally dis- 
membered out of deference to the views of 
Joseph II of Austria, during the period of 
Austrian rule in Flanders. He objected to the 
nude figures of Adam and Eve as unsuited to 
a church, and these were accordingly removed. 
The entire work was carried away during the 
French Eevolution, but was returned some 
years later. The wings, however, were not re- 
stored to their original position, and were fi- 
nally sold to a London dealer for four thousand 
pounds sterling. He, in turn, sold them to the 
King of Prussia, and they are now in the Mu- 
seum of Berhn. The wings now at St. Bavon 
are the copies made by Coxcie. The original 
panels of Adam and Eve were stored for many 
years in the cellars of St. Bavon, and then 



238 The Spell of Flanders 

were exchanged with the Belgian Government 
for the Coxcie wings just mentioned. They 
are now in the Brussels Museum. The Adam 
and Eve at St. Bavon are not even copies of 
the originals. 

Jean Van Eyck enjoyed the confidence and 
affection of Philip the Good until his death, and 
was often sent on diplomatic missions of great 
importance. On one occasion he was sent to 
Portugal with an embassy appointed to propose 
a marriage between his ducal patron and the 
Princess Isabel. Jean was also commissioned 
to paint the portrait of the fair Isabel so that 
his master could judge for himself whether her 
charms were as great as he had fancied them 
to be. This portrait was duly painted and in 
the inventory of the possessions of Margaret 
of Austria there was a painting by Jean Van 
Eyck called La belle Portugalaise, which was, 
no doubt, the very one painted for Duke 
Philip. It must have been pleasing, for he 
married the lady. As late as 1516 La belle 
Portugalaise was still in existence at Mal- 
ines. It represented a lady in a red habit with 
sable trimmings, attended by St. Nicholas. 
It has since disappeared — one of the many 
thousands that were lost or destroyed during 
the wars of the sixteenth to the eighteenth 



pa.tro3: 

worshititttft!' ilit' XJ fioaufui ''''■■ -I'fdn f an Eyrk ■ 



Nicholas 



Philip the Good and the Van Eycks 239 

centuries, but both bistorically and artistically 
one of the most interesting of them all. There 
are a considerable number of authenicated 
paintings by Jean Van Eyck still in existence. 
Several of these are in the original frames with 
the artist's famous motto, " Als ik kan ^' (As I 
can), more or less legible. It is by no means 
unlikely that in time to come one or more of 
those now lost will be discovered, thus adding 
to the priceless heritage that the world owes 
to his immortal brush. 

Two of the most celebrated of Jean Van 
Eyck's paintings can be seen at Bruges. One 
of these is in the Museum and shows George 
Van der Paele, Canon of St. Donatian, wor- 
shipping the Madonna. ' Of the portrait of the 
worthy donor Max Eooses, the Director of the 
Plantin-Moretus Museum at Antwerp, says: 
*' The Canon's face is so astoundingly true to 
life that it is perhaps the most marvellous piece 
of painting that ever aspired to reproduce a 
human physiognomy. This firm, fat painting 
renders at once the cracks of the epidermis and 
the softness of the flesh. Beside this head 
with its lovingly wrought furrows and wrin- 
kles gleam the dazzling white of the surplice 
with its greenish shimmer, the intense red of 
Mary's mantle, St. Donatian 's flowing cape, 



240 The Spell of Flanders 

and the metallic reflections of St. George's 
breastplate." Equally fine as an example of 
faithful portrait painting is the picture of the 
artist's wife which also hangs in this interest- 
ing little gallery of old masters. 

Four years after Jean Van Eyck's death, 
which occurred in 1440, another Flemish 
painter of note acquired citizen's rights at 
Bruges. This was Petrus Christus. The most 
celebrated of his paintings depicts the Legend 
of Ste. Godeberte. The stor^^ was that this 
young lady's parents had planned a rich mar- 
riage for her, whereas she preferred to enter a 
convent. The prospective bride and her groom 
visited a jeweller's to select the wedding ring 
and there encountered St. Eloi, or Elisius, who 
was both a goldsmith and a bishop. The Saint, 
knowing the wishes of the maiden, placed the 
ring upon her finger hirnself, thereby dedicat- 
ing her to the service of the Lord. This pic- 
ture was painted for the Goldsmiths' Guild of 
Antwerp, passed into the collection of Baron 
Oppenheim, of Cologne, and is now in a private 
gallery. 

Besides the ^' Adoration of the Lamb," the 
Cathedral of St. Bavon possesses enough other 
notable works of art to equip a small museum. 
One of these is the wooden pulpit, carved by 



Philip the Good and the Van Eycks 241 

P. H. Verbruggen, and representing the glori- 
fication of St. Bavon. Another is the famous 
tomb of Bishop Triest carved by Jerome Du- 
quesnoy in 1654. This represents the Bishop 
reclining on a conch, and has been termed ^ ' the 
most beautiful piece of statuary in the coun- 
try. ' ' Still a third masterpiece is ' ' St. Bavon 
withdrawing from the World," by Eubens. 
There are a score of other paintings and pieces 
of sculpture of interest and importance, but 
all are so over-shadowed by the famous polyp- 
tych that the average tourist scarcely notices 
them unless he goes back to this remarkable 
church several times. In front of the Chateau 
of Girard, and close to the cathedral, stands 
the impressive monument to the two Van 
Eycks erected by the city in 1913. It is by the 
sculptor Georges Verbanck and represents the 
brothers receiving the homage of the nations.. 




CHAPTER XII 

TOUKNAI, THE OLDEST CITY IN BELGIITM 

]S the ladies were somewhat fatigued by 
our rambles around Flanders it was 
decided that they would spend two or 
three quiet days with la tante Kosa while 
the Professor and I made daily excursions 
into wonderland, returning to the home of 
our hostess every night. The nearest point 
of interest was the city of Tournai, the 
oldest city in all Belgium. There was no di- 
rect railway line, however, and — as on many 
other occasions during our pilgrimage — we 
had no little trouble studying out a correspond- 
ence, or set of connections, that would take us 
there and back without loss of time. We 
started each morning before six o'clock and 
found the trains at that time of day made up 
mostly of fourth-class coaches filled with work- 
ing people. The Belgian State Eailway sells 
billets d'ahonnement for these trains at in- 
credibly low rates — a few sous a month for 
short trips from one town to the next, and a 

242 



Tournai, the Oldest City in Belgium 243 

few francs a month for rides half way across 
the Kingdom. I have known clerks residing 
in the extreme southern end of the Department 
of Hainaut, close to the French frontier, who 
ride every day to Mons, ten or fifteen miles dis- 
tant, and there take a train for Brussels. The 
object of this low rate of fare is the paternal 
desire of the Government that labourers should 
be able to obtain work wherever it may ibe 
found and still retain their homes in the vil- 
lages in which they were born and raised. 
Home ties are very strong in Belgium, and the 
people cheerfully travel considerable distances 
under this plan rather than move away from 
their relatives and friends. Economically it 
is a very good thing for the country as a whole, 
since it enables the labourer out of work to look 
for a place in a hundred different towns and 
the employer to draw his help from an equally 
wide area. Thus in times that are not abnor- 
mally bad there are very few industrial plants 
without their full quota of hands, and very few 
hands out of work. 

The fourth-class coaches are built like the 
third-class, with cross divisions making several 
compartments, but the division walls do not 
extend to the roof so the passengers can toss 
things to one another over them. Separate 



244 The Spell of Flanders 

cars are provided for men and women, many 
scandals having resulted from the promiscuous 
herding of both sexes which prevailed some 
twenty years ago. The occupants of the men's 
cars are of all ages, from tiny lads who seem 
to be hardly more than eight or nine — but are 
no doubt older, as the Belgian laws no longer 
permit minors of that age to work — to grand- 
sires of eighty. All are roughly clad, ready 
to take up their respective tasks the moment 
they arrive — no one thinl?:s of having a sep- 
arate suit for travelling as most of the work- 
men who commute to and from an American 
city would do. In the women's car the occu- 
pants are mostly young girls from fifteen to 
twenty, with a sprinkling of little girls and 
some women up to thirty, but very few who 
appear to be older than that. They always 
seem to be happy, singing and " carrying-on " 
with the utmost abandon. They are ready to 
start a flirtation at a moment's notice and oc- 
casionally, when their car halts in a station 
next to some other train in which there are 
young men near the windows, the whole bevy 
of charmers devotes itself to making conquests 
— opening the windows and shouting a volley 
of good-natured raillery to which, if they are 
natives and used to it, the youngsters retort 



Tournai, the Oldest City in Belgium 245 

in kind. Then, as the trains start, the laugh- 
ing crowd throws kisses by handfuls and the 
flirtation is over. 

As our train jolted along, with frequent 
stops to take on and let off fourth-class passen- 
gers, the Professor explained to me that to be 
consistent to his plan we really should have 
visited Tournai first. However, it was far out 
of the way as a starting point, and its history 
did not dominate that of all Flanders in the 
way that the early history of Bruges did. In 
fact, while in early times subject to the Counts 
of Flanders, it was often subject to the French 
Crown for generations at a time, and is usu- 
ally regarded as a Walloon rather than a Flem- 
ish city. Its influence on Flemish art and 
architecture, however, led us to include this 
Ville d'Art in our itinerary. 

According to the scholars Tournai is the 
Turris Nerviorum of Caesar, the capital of the 
Nervii, and one of the oldest towns north of 
the Alps. In 299 it was the scene of the mar- 
tyrdom of St. Piat, who founded a church on 
the site of the cathedral. As the visitor gazes 
at that magnificent structure he can reflect that 
the ground on which it stands has been conse- 
crated to divine worship for more than sixteen 
hundred years. During the fourth and fifth 



246 The Spell of Flanders 

centuries Tournai was the capital of the branch 
of the Franks that ruled over the greater part 
of what is now Belgium, but the history of 
these early days when the Koman Empire was 
tottering to its fall is very meagre, and more 
than half legend at best. The first kings of 
the Merovingian line are shadowy, mythical 
personages who stalk across the pages of his- 
tory like the ghost in Hamlet — far off, dim, 
but awe-inspiring. 

Childeric is one of the most picturesque of 
these early kings. Expelled from the tribe 
owing to his youthful gallantries, he fled to the 
court of Basinus, King of the Thuringians. 
The queen, Basina, welcomed him even more 
warmly than her husband, and hardly had 
Childeric returned home, on being recalled by 
the tribe some years later to rule over them, 
than she followed him. Arrived at his court, 
she announced that she had come to marry him 
because he was the bravest, strongest and 
handsomest man she had heard of. She added, 
naively, that if she knew of another who sur- 
passed him in these particulars not even the 
sea could keep her from such a rival. Basina, 
who from all accounts should be the patron 
saint of the suffragettes, won her suit and they 
were married. On the night before the cere- 



Tournai, the Oldest City in Belgium 247 

mony, according to an ancient chronicle, she 
bade Childeric go into the courtyard of the 
palace at Tournai to see what he might see. 
He went at her bidding three times. On the 
first occasion he beheld a long procession of 
lions, unicorns and leopards, struggling and 
snapping at one another, but all without a 
sound, nor did the beasts cast any shadow. 
The second time he saw huge bears shambling 
across the courtyard which vanished even while 
he was gazing at them. Then came packs of 
wolves which ran in circles and leaped, but 
silently. On his last visit he saw dogs of huge 
size and many colours, and innumerable cats 
which always looked behind them. From these 
portents Basina explained to him the qualities 
of the race of kings of which he was to be the 
ancestor. Clovis, one of the greatest of the 
early Frankish kings, was the child of Childeric 
and Basina. 

In the sixth century Tournai figured prom- 
inently in the narrative of the furious wars 
between Fredegonda and Brunehault, one of 
the great epics of the early Middle Ages. 
Fredegonda, who was the daughter of a bonds- 
man, became by virtue of her beauty and im- 
perious will the wife of Chilperic, King of the 
Franks. Brunehault, equally beautiful, but a 



248 The Spell of Flanders 

king's daughter as well as the wife of a king 
— Sigebert, brother of Chilperic — began the 
contest to avenge the death of her sister 
Galeswintha, whom Fredegonda had caused to 
be slain. Chilperic and Fredegonda were be- 
sieged at Tournai in 575, but the latter caused 
the murder of Sigebert, upon whose death the 
besieging army dispersed. Incidents in this 
siege are depicted in the stained-glass windows 
of the cathedral. The contest between the two 
fierce queens lasted more than half a century, 
Brunehault at the last being torn to pieces by 
wild horses, when more than eighty years old, 
by the son of her life-long rival. 

In 880 the Norsemen fell upon the city and its 
inhabitants fled to Noyon, where they remained 
for thirty-one years. In its subsequent history 
the old town sustained more than its share of 
sieges, the common lot of all frontier places, 
and changed hands oftener than any other Eu- 
ropean city. For many generations it was sub- 
ject to the early Counts of Flanders. Philip 
Augustus then annexed it to France, to which 
it belonged until the reign of Francis I. In 
1340 occurred the most famous of all its sieges. 
It belonged at that time to France and was at- 
tacked by the English under Edward III, a 
huge army of Flemings under Jacques Van 



Tournai, the Oldest City in Belgium 249 

Artevelde, the Duke of Brabant and the Comit 
of Hainant with their followers and many 
others — a host estimated by Froissart at one 
hundred and twenty thousand men. That de- 
lightful historian devotes more than a dozen 
chapters to a gossipy account of the siege, which 
lasted more than eleven weeks and was only 
raised by the approach of a French army when 
the supply of provisions was reduced to three 
days ' rations. In 1513 Tournai was captured by 
Henry VIII, who gave the see to Cardinal Wol- 
sey, but soon sold it back to the French. The 
huge round tower a little distance to the right 
as one enters the city from the railway station 
was erected by the English King during his 
short rule. In 1521 the city was captured by 
Charles the Fifth, becoming a part of his do- 
mains, and in 1581 it sustained another famous 
siege. In common with the rest of Flanders 
and the Low Countries, the city had revolted 
against the atrocities of Philip II. It was be- 
sieged by the Prince of Parma and heroically 
defended by Christine, Princess of Epinoy, 
whose statue stands in the Grande Place. She 
was herself wounded and had lost more than 
three-fourths of the garrison before she sur- 
rendered. 

Tournai once more passed into the hands of 



250 The Spell of Flanders 

the French in 1668, when it was captured by 
Louis XIV and afterwards elaborately forti- 
fied by Vauban, was retaken by Marlborough 
in 1709, returned to Austria five years later, 
and captured once more by the French after 
the battle of Fontenoy in 1745. Four years 
later it was again restored to Austria, but was 
twice taken by the armies of the first French 
republic, remaining French territory till the 
battle of Waterloo. It would be a difficult mat- 
ter to say how often its fortifications have been 
built, demolished, rebuilt and again destroyed. 
The most noteworthy of these later sieges 
was that of 1745, during the War of the. Aus- 
trian Succession, which brought the English 
and French into conflict even along the fron- 
tiers of their far-off American colonies. Aus- 
trian Flanders became the arena of the de- 
cisive campaign in this war — in which its in- 
habitants had absolutely no interest or con- 
cern whatever — and Tournai was the prize for 
which the armies fought. It was during this 
and the preceding century that Flanders be- 
came ' ' the cockpit of Europe ' ' — foreign ar- 
mies sweeping over its fertile plains in wars 
the very purpose of which was unknown to the 
peasants who helplessly saw their cattle and 
crops swept away and their farmsteads and 



Tournai, the Oldest City in Belgium 251 

villages destroyed. It is curious to remark 
how frequently the English were engaged in 
these conflicts, particularly in the vicinity of 
Tournai. In the words of Lord Beaconsfield, 
^' Flanders has been trodden by the feet and 
watered with the blood of successive genera- 
tions of British soldiers." 

An English force formed the nucleus and the 
backbone of the allied army, which was com- 
manded by the Duke of Cumberland, brother 
of J^ing George II. The French forces were 
led by Maurice de Saxe, the greatest military 
leader of that generation, as Marlborough had 
been of the one before it. King Louis XV — 
for almost the only time in his long reign — 
played the part of a man throughout this cam- 
paign. When Saxe explained his plan of cam- 
paign, which involved a scheme of field forti- 
fications, the ^' carpet generals " protested 
loudly that Frenchmen were well able to meet 
their foes on open ground. Louis silenced 
these arm-chair critics and replied to his great 
field-marshal, " In confiding to you the com- 
mand of my army I intend that every one shall 
obey you, and I will be the first to set an ex- 
ample of obedience." 

For a time the allies, which consisted of Eng- 
lish, Hanoverian, Dutch and Austrian troops 



252 The Spell of Flanders 

— very few Flemings taking part in this cam- 
paign on either side — were in doubt whether 
Saxe intended to attack Mons, St. Ghislain or 
Tournai. With his usual rapidity of action, 
the French leader, when his forces suddenly ap- 
peared before Tournai, had that city completely 
invested before the allies knew where he was. 
It was early in the month of May, and very 
rainy, when the allied army started from Brus- 
sels and marched through the mud toward the 
beleaguered city. On the evening of May 
tenjth, eleven days after the siege had begun, 
they arrived within sight of the quintuple 
towers of the cathedral and the adjacent bel- 
fry. Their position was southeast of the city, 
on the route to St. Ghislain and Mons, and the 
towers were therefore sharply outlined against 
the sunset as the army, standing on rising 
ground, gazed across the rolling country that 
was to be the morrow's battlefield. 

Saxe had made the most of the slowness 
of the allies' advance by choosing the ground 
where he would give battle, and strengthening 
his position with field redoubts, using the little 
village of Fontenoy as a base. The allies at- 
tacked from the direction of the little village 
of Vezon, while Louis XV watched the battle 
from a hill near the intersection of the Mons 



Tournai, the Oldest City in Belgium 253 

road with that leading from Eamecroix to 
Antoing. The attack began at two o'clock in 
the morning, the English advancing in a hol- 
low square, and it was not nntil after two in 
the afternoon that Saxe, after bringing every 
man in his forces into action, had the satis- 
faction of seeing the great square falter and 
turn slowly back — halting every hundred 
yards to beat off its foes. The fiercest unit in 
the French army was a brigade of Irish volun- 
teers who fought like tigers, the men flinging 
themselves against the stubborn English square 
again and again. A learned historian, who has 
devoted more than eighty pages to a descrip- 
tion of the battle, fails to give so clear an idea 
of its decisive moment as does the poet Thomas 
Osborne Davis in half as many lines : 

" Thrice at tlie huts of Fontenoy the English column 
failed, 

And twice the lines of Saint Antoine the Dutch in vain as- 
sailed ; 

For town and slope were filled with fort and flanking bat- 
tery, 

And well they swept the English ranks and Dutch auxiliary. 

As vainly through De Barri's wood the British soldiers 
burst, 

The French artillery drove them back, diminished and dis- 
persed. 

The bloody Duke of Cumberland beheld with anxious eye, 

And ordered up his last reserves, his latest chance to try. 



254 The Spell of Flanders 

On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, how fast his generals ride! 
And mustering came his chosen troops, like clouds at even- 
tide. 

" Six thousand English veterans in stately column tread ; 
Their cannon blaze m front and flank, Lord Hay is at their 

head. 
Steady they step a-down the slope, steadj' they climb the 

hill, 
Steady they load, steady they fire, moving right onward 

still. 
Betwixt the wood and Fontenoy, as through a furnace 

blast, 
Through rampart, trench and palisade, and bullets show- 
ering fast; 
And on the open plain above they rose and kept their 

course, 
With ready fire and grim resolve that mocked at hostile 

force ; 
Past Fontenoy, past Fontenoy, while thinner grew their 

ranks, 
They broke, as broke the Zuyder Zee through Holland's 

ocean banks. 



" ' Push on my household cavalry ! ' King Louis madly 
cried. 

To death they rush, but rude their shock; not unavenged 
they died. 

On through the camp the column trod — King Louis turns 
his rein. 

' Not yet, my liege/ Saxe interposed ; ' the Irish troops re- 
main.' 

* Lord Claire,' he said, ' you have your wish ; there are 
your Saxon foes ! ' 



Tournai, the Oldest City in Belgium 255 

The Marshal almost smiles to see, so furiously he goes, 
How fierce the looks these exiles wear, who're wont to be so 

gay ! 
The treasured wrongs of fifty years are in their hearts to- 
day. 
On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, nor ever yet elsewhere, 
Rushed on to fight a nobler band than these proud exiles 
were. 

"Like lions leaping at a fold, when mad with hunger's 
pang. 

Right up against the English line the Irish exiles sprang; 

Bright was their steel, 'tis bloody now, their guns axe filled 
with gore J 

Through shattered ranks and severed files and trampled 
flags they tore. 

The English strove with desperate strength; paused, ral- 
lied, staggered, fled; 

The green hillside is matted close with dying and with dead. 

Across the plain and far away passed on that hideous wrack 

While cavalier and Fantassin rush in upon their track. 

On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, like eagles in the sun, 

With bloody plumes the Irish stand — the field is fought 
and won ! " 

On our first day's visit the Professor de- 
voted most of the time to the cathedral and the 
remains that still exist of the earliest period of 
Tournai 's long and varied history. As we ap- 
proached the city, past the vast excavations 
around Antoing connected with the lime pits 
and kilns and cement works that there abound, 
we could see the five spires of the cathedral in 



256 The Spell of Flanders 

the distance. Antoing is only a mile and a 
half from Fontenoy, and the battlefield — 
marked by a monument erected in 1907 — is 
happily free from the pits that scar so much 
of the countryside thereabouts, and no doubt 
looks to-day very much as it did on the day of 
the great fight. 

The cathedral of Tournai is the oldest, the 
most vast, and decidedly the most imposing 
religious edifice in Belgium. Its five great 
towers dominate the entire city and are visible 
for miles across the surrounding plains. The 
oldest portions of the present structure date 
from about 880, when the inhabitants of 
Tournai returned after the invasion of the 
Norsemen. The side porches of the naves be- 
long to this earliest period. In 1054 a fire de- 
stroyed the upper part of the cathedral and it 
was shortly after this that the towers were 
built. There were originally seven of these, 
the one in the centre being a gigantic square 
structure rising above all the others. The 
group as it then stood was without a rival in 
Europe, but the two towers to the east of the 
central one were removed with the ancient 
choir and the height of the central tower re- 
duced. In their present form, however, the 
towers compose a magnificent assemblage. 



Tournai, the Oldest City in Belgium 257 

The four outer towers, which surround the now 
much shorter central one, are two hundred and 
seventy-two feet high, and, although appar- 
ently alike at the first glance, are not entirely 
so — a circumstance that enhances rather than 
detracts from the picturesqueness of the group. 
Placed at the crossing of the nave and the 
transept these towers, from without, suggest 
the fantastic idea that instead of one there are 
two cathedrals, each facing the other, and with 
the central tower uniting them. 

In reality, the edifice is large enough to make 
two cathedrals and more, the interior being 
four hundred and twenty-six feet in length 
and two hundred and twenty feet in width 
across the transept. Built at different epochs, 
this imposing edifice constitutes a veritable 
history in stone of the development of mediae- 
val architecture. The nave was completed in 
1070 and the transept in the eleventh and 
twelfth centuries. Both are in the Eoman- 
esque style, while the choir — originally Eoman- 
esque — was rebuilt in 1242-1325 in the early 
Gothic style. It is both longer and almost fifty 
feet higher than the older nave — a fact that 
leads the observer looking at the structure 
from without to mistake it for the nave itself. 
In addition to the main edifice there is a small 



258 The Spell of Flanders 

parish chapel built against the north side of 
the cathedral, a Gothic edifice dating from 
1516-1518, while attached to it by a passage 
over a picturesque arch called Le fausseporte is 
the Bishop's palace. Here there is another 
chapel, the Chapel of the Bishops, dating from 
the twelfth century. 

Like most religious structures in Belgium, 
the cathedral was for many years surrounded, 
and almost entirely obscured, by small private 
houses of all kinds built up against it. These 
have now been removed, although there are 
still a few more that we were told were des- 
tined to come down in order to give a better 
view of the structure from one side. There are 
three entrances, of which two are noteworthy. 
One of these, called the Porte Mantille, is on 
the north side facing the Place des Acacias, 
and dates from the twelfth century. It is the 
oldest part of the exterior, and looks it, the 
round arch of the doorway being surrounded 
by quaint Romanesque sculptures. The winds 
of seven hundred winters have worn these bas- 
reliefs down considerably, but they are still 
surprisingly clear, the faces, armour and cos- 
tumes of the figures being quite distinct. They 
are among the oldest stone carvings in Europe 
and show that the art of sculpture was prac- 



Tournai, the Oldest City in Belgium 259 

tised at Tournai within a century or two after 
the retirement of the Norsemen. 

Even more interesting is the fine facade just 
behind the groined porch that faces the Place 
de I'Eveche. From a distance this end of the 
cathedral is hardly pleasing, the sixteenth-cen- 
tury porch concealing the early Eomanesque 
fa§ade and being out of harmony with it. 
After passing within the arches, however, the 
visitor forgets all this and is lost in wonder 
and admiration at the wealth of stone carving 
that decorates the walls on both sides of the 
main entrance. There is no such decoration 
in stone to be seen in all Flanders, for the 
churches of Tournai escaped the fury of the 
iconoclasts — Tournai, at that time, belonging 
to France. Here the sculptors of Tournai 
have achieved a veritable masterpiece. The 
work is in three tiers and belongs to three 
different periods. The lowest tier, carved in 
blue stone quarried in Tournai itself or near 
by, is the most remarkable, and is regarded by 
the critics as the finest in artistic merit. It 
dates from the thirteenth century and repre- 
sents Adam and Eve and various prophets and 
fathers of the church. The second zone is in 
white stone, now grey with age, and was the 
work of the sixteenth century. It comprises a 



260 The Spell of Flanders 

series of small panels carved in bas-relief, 
those at the left depicting — so the authorities 
at Tournai tell us — a religious procession, and 
those at the right various incidents in the his- 
tory of King Childeric. The highest tier com- 
prises a series of large statues in high relief 
of the apostles, the Virgin Mary, St. Piat and 
St. Eleuthereus. Although the figures are 
boldly conceived and well executed, and, in the 
main, fairly well preserved, they are artisti- 
cally less important than the others. In its 
entirety, however, this entrance — ^' le por- 
tail," '^ the entrance," as the people of Tour- 
nai style it — is a place of wonderful interest, 
a place to be visited again and again under dif- 
ferent lights and in different moods. 

Passing into the interior of the cathedral the 
visitor is again given the impression that here 
he is not in one church but at least two and 
possibly more. The ancient nave, with its 
vaulted roof supported by three series of Eo- 
manesque arches placed one above another, 
seems somehow to be complete by itself and to 
have no relation to the far-off choir which is 
partially cut off from it by an elaborately 
carved rood loft, which — in its flamboyant 
Renaissance style — seems out of place and 
tends to mar the general effect of the vast in- 



Tournai, the Oldest City in Belgium 261 

terior. The pillars in tlie nave are not uni- 
form, but have a wide diversity of capitals — ' 
some decorated with the lotus or conventional 
foliage, others with beasts or birds or quaint, 
fantastic heads. At the intersection of the 
nave and transept the great pillars supporting 
the central tower are of tremendous propor- 
tions and the view looking upward from this 
point is one of extraordinary grandeur. 
Here, too, the rood loft, or jube, can be studied 
to best advantage. The work of Corneille 
Floris of Antwerp and executed in 1572, it is 
undoubtedly one of the masterpieces of sculp- 
ture of its period. The Doric columns are of 
red marble, the architectural outlines of the 
structure in black marble, and the medallions 
and other bas-reliefs in white. Passing 
through one of the three arches of this portal 
we come to the noble choir. This is the most 
beautiful portion of the cathedral, its vast 
height and the richly coloured light th^t 
streams downward from its fine stained-glass 
windows creating a very atmosphere of maj- 
esty and inspiration. 

While we were inspecting the choir and the 
ambulatory, which contains several paintings 
and carvings of no little interest, the Profes- 
sor discovered that the hours had been slipping 



262 The Spell of Flanders 

by faster than we had imagined and as there 
were several relics of the earliest period of the 
city's history that we wished to visit on our 
first day we decided to betake ourselves to. the 
Grande Place and postpone our visit to the 
far-famed treasury of the cathedral to another 
day. We found a little place to dine directly 
facing the Belfry, and with the Princess 
of Epinoy, in her coat of mail and brandishing 
her battle-axe, standing on her monument hard 
by. The Place is a very large one, but most of 
the houses facing it have been so modernized 
as to lose much of their mediaeval aspect, al- 
though the ancient Cloth Hall — which has re- 
cently been restored — no doubt looks much as 
it did when in its prime. 

The Belfry was naturally our first stopping 
place after we had done justice to the excellent 
dinner in half a dozen courses that two francs 
had secured for us. This edifice dates from 
1187, and stands slightly back from the apex of 
the triangle formed by the Grande Place. Ac- 
cording to some authorities the peculiar shape 
of the Place is due to the intersection of two 
Eoman roads at the point where the Belfry now 
stands. Externally the tower, which is two 
hundred and thirty-six feet high, strikingly re- 
sembles the Belfry of Ghent. Within, after 




THE BELFRY, TOURNAI. 



Tournai, the Oldest City in Belgium 263 

climbing a winding stairway for some distance, 
we were shown several large rooms with heavy 
timber ceilings that were once used as prison 
cells. They looked fairly comfortable, as com- 
pared with the dungeons in the Chateau des 
Comtes, and one of them was then in use by 
the small son of the concierge as a play-room 
and was littered with toys — mostly of his own 
manufacture, apparently. The doors to these 
" cells " were of massive construction and 
locked by keys nearly a foot long, or at least 
it seemed so, though we did not measure them. 
The view from the top of the edifice is pic- 
turesque and well worth the climb. A melo- 
dious set of chimes is installed near the top, 
which ring every half hour. The big bell, la 
Bancloque, which called the people to arms, 
was cast in 1392, and must have been rung 
quite frequently during the stirring days when 
Tournai was being fought for by armies from 
half the countries in Europe. 

From the Belfry we visited the ancient 
Church of St. Brice which stands in one of the 
very oldest quarters of the city. Almost fac- 
ing the church are two buildings known as the 
Eoman houses. Although hardly dating from 
the time of the Eomans they are undoubtedly 
very ancient. Only the outer walls, however. 



264 The Spell of Flanders 

remain of the original construction, the inte- 
riors dating from a much later period. One 
of these houses was untenanted when we were 
there, and the other was an estaminet. We 
entered it and ordered drinks, and asked if we 
could see the up-stairs rooms, but apparently 
they were not very tidy as the landlady de- 
clined to show them, assuring us that there was 
nothing to see. At No. 18 on the same street, 
rue Barre-Saint-Brice, is another estaminet in 
a house of very ancient construction. After 
quite a search we found the caretaker of the 
church. As old as the oldest part of the cathe- 
dral this structure is a remarkable example of 
Eomanesque architecture. Externally it looks 
from the rear like three stone barns built close 
together, but its square tower is lofty and im- 
posing, although much injured by a silly sort 
of hat which was stuck on early in the last cen- 
tury. The most interesting object within was 
a quaint Tournai tapestry representing a va- 
riety of Biblical subjects. 

In the year 1653 archeologists and historians 
throughout Europe were greatly excited over 
one of the most interesting finds of ancient rel- 
ics ever recorded. In the house now No. 8 on 
the Terrace Saint-Brice, on one side of the 
church, was dug up at a depth of eight feet a 



Tournai, the Oldest City in Belgium 265 

veritable museum of arms and jewels since 
known as the Treasure of Cliilderic I, whose 
marriage with Basina was preceded by so 
many portents. More than a hundred gold 
coins of the Byzantine Emperors were found, 
several hundred golden bees, a quantity of sil- 
ver money of great antiquity, divers clasps and 
buckles — all mingled with the remains of hu- 
man bones, which may have been those of the 
Merovingian King and his imperious spouse. 
One ring bore a bust of a man with long hair 
holding a lance, with the inscription Childerici 
Regis. After passing through various hands 
the collection came into the possession of Louis 
XIV, and eventually into the Bibliotheque 
Eoyale at Paris. Here, in 1831, it was stolen. 
The thieves were pursued and threw their 
booty into the Seine, where a few pieces were 
afterwards recovered and are now in the nu- 
mismatic collection of the Bibliotheque Nation- 
ale at Paris. 

Not far from this interesting old quarter are 
some picturesque remains of the ancient city 
walls, two ivy covered towers facing a moat in 
which there is still some water. These are 
called the Marvis Towers, and were erected 
during the thirteenth century. On our way back 
to the station we made a little detour in order to 



266 The Spell of Flanders 

see the curious Pont des Trous — literally *' the 
Bridge of the Holes," meaning loopholes — the 
most ancient specimen of mediaeval military 
architecture in Belgium. The tower on the side 
farthest from the centre of the city was built 
prior to 1259, the other in 1304, and the bridge 
with its three ogival arches in 1330. Across 
the bridge at short intervals are narrow loop- 
holes to enable the defenders to fire at foes ap- 
proaching by way of the Eiver Scheldt. One 
of the towers is said to contain a fine vaulted 
room, but as we were unable to find any one 
who knew who had the key to the little door at 
its foot we did not see this room or the pas- 
sage-way across the bridge. Between this 
bridge and the railway line we noticed a high 
stone wall of ancient construction which, from 
its location, may also have been a fragment of 
the city walls. Further on is the Henry VIII 
tower, which was built by the English monarch 
after he captured the city in 1513, as part of 
a citadel intended to hold the citizens in check. 
The tower is slightly over seventy-five feet in 
diameter and the walls at the base are said to 
be twenty feet thick. The rest of the citadel 
has long since disappeared and this vestige of 
it is now the centre of a pleasant little park 
much frequented on sunny days by nursemaids 



Tournai, the Oldest City in Belgium 267 

and children. Amid these peaceful surround- 
ings it was, when we saw it, hard to picture the 
old tower as having ever been the scene of 
fierce conflicts with furious foes striving to bat- 
ter a breach in its massive walls or scale it 
with long ladders, while its defenders fired vol- 
ley after volley through its tiny windows and 
flung down big stones or boiling tar from its 
parapet. 

The strategy of the early part of the present 
war did not call for a protracted defence of 
Tournai, with the result that, as this is being 
written, the old city is reported to have suffered 
little or no damage. In view of the frequency 
with which it had been contended for in former 
wars it is to be hoped that this one — which has 
so far been more destructive than all previous 
wars put together — will pass quaint old 
Tournai by and that the great cathedral with 
its five towers and marvellous stone carvings 
may be spared for generations yet to come. 




CHAPTER XIII 

SEVEN CENTUEIES OF TOUKNAISIAN" ART 

HE citizens of Tournai of to-day have 
given to their beautiful city the name of 
^' Ville d'Art." To be sure, the same 
title is claimed for Bruges and Ghent, for Ant- 
werp and Malines. The first two are justly 
proud of their many beautiful monuments of 
the past and their associations with the work 
of the early Flemish painters, Antwerp of its 
connection with the later development of paint- 
ing in Flanders and the most artistic of the 
early printers, Malines of its lace and its splen- 
did examples of religious architecture and art. 
Tournai, however, has a broader title to the 
phrase than any of them in that the artistic ac- 
tivities of its gifted sons have not been confined 
to one medium or two, but have been inde- 
pendently developed along half a score of dif- 
ferent lines and during a period covering more 
than seven centuries. Not only is the city a 
ricli repository of the artistic productions of 

268 



Seven Centuries of Tournaisian Art 269 

past ages, but it is still more notable in having 
been one of the most prolific producers of beau- 
tiful and artistic things. To the true con- 
noisseur a stay of several weeks in this fine old 
border town would be none too long to afford 
opportunity to study all of its collections and 
rummage in out-of-the-way corners for stray 
specimens that the dealers and bargain hunt- 
ers have overlooked. Unfortunately, neither 
the Professor nor I can lay claim to more than 
a rudimentary knowledge of such matters and 
in the chronicle of our rambles in the City of 
Art there may be much to make the judicious 
grieve. It is not, however, so much in order to 
give an account of what we saw that this chap- 
ter is written as in the hope that it may sug- 
gest how much there is to see for those whose 
eyes are better trained and more discriminat- 
ing than ours. 

Tournai looms large in the history of early 
Flemish painting, for it was here that the next 
important group of masters after the Van 
Eycks appeared. As early as the first half of 
the fourteenth century paintings on cloth were 
executed at Tournai, followed by what was 
termed '' flat painting " for panels. About 
1406 the first of the great artists whose names 
have come down to us settled at Tournai. This 



270 The Spell of Flanders 

was Robert Campin. He acquired the right of 
citizenship in 1410 and died in 1444, being thus 
a contemporary of the Van Eycks. He is 
known to have painted many works, but until 
recently none of these had been definitely iden- 
tified. Now, thanks to the earnest and patient 
study of Belgian scholars, he seems likely to 
be given his rightful place as one of the great- 
est of the early Flemish masters — after hav- 
ing been completely forgotten for nearly five 
hundred years ! His most important work is 
an altarpiece in the possession of the Merode 
family at Brussels, while the Frankfort Mu- 
seum and the Prado at Madrid contain some 
fine examples of his skill. 

It is known that Robert Campin was the mas- 
ter of two other Tournai artists, Rogier Van 
der Weyden and Jacques Daret, of whom the 
former soon far surpassed his teacher in re- 
nown. Daret entered the atelier of Robert 
Campin in 1418, when a lad of fourteen, ob- 
tained the title of apprentice in 1427, and be- 
came a member of the Guild of St. Luke in 
1432. One of his pictures, a panel showing the 
Nativity, was in the collection of the late Mr. 
J. Pierpont Morgan. Van der Weyden, whose 
Walloon name was Roger de la Pasture, be- 
came one of Campin 's apprentices in 1427 — 



Seven Centuries of Tournaisian Art 271 

the same date as Daret — and was admitted to 
the guild of the painters at Tonrnai in 1432. 
He spent much of his time at Brussels, how- 
ever, and is sometimes considered as belonging 
to that city rather than Tournai. A ' ' Descent 
from the Cross " now at the Escorial is his 
most famous picture. It was painted for the 
Archers ' Company at Louvain and a copy of it, 
made by the master himself, was hung in 
the Church of St. Pierre in that city. About 
1430 Van der Weyden was commissioned to 
paint four large panels for the Hall of Justice 
in the new Hotel de Ville at Brussels. Two of 
these showed Trajan, the Just Emperor, and 
the other two depicted the Justice of Herken- 
bald, and for more than two centuries the series 
was regarded as the finest group of paintings 
in the Low Countries. They were destroyed at 
the bombardment of Brussels in 1695, but tap- 
estries copied from the originals still exist in 
the Museum at Berne, having been captured by 
the Swiss when Charles the Bold was defeated 
at Granson. 

. In 1443 the artist began what in the judg- 
ment of the art critics was his most important 
work, an altarpiece representing *' The Last 
Judgment " for the chapel of a hospital at 
Beaune, near Dijon in Burgundy, where it still 



272 The Spell of Flanders 

remains. The museum at Antwerp contains a 
triptych of the Seven Sacraments by this mas- 
ter, showing the interior of a cathedral sug- 
gestive of that of Tournai — and, in fact, it 
was for the Bishop of Tournai that it was orig- 
inally painted. Nearly every important art 
gallery in Europe contains one or more works 
by Van der Weyden, who not only was very 
industrious, receiving numerous orders from 
the great men of his day, but fortunate in hav- 
ing most of his masterpieces preserved from 
the destruction that overtook so much of the 
work of the early Flemish artists. 

The former Cloth Hall of Tournai, erected in 
1610, was completely and very successfully re- 
stored in 1884, and is now used to house an 
admirable little collection of paintings and a 
museum of antiquities. The paintings are, for 
the most part, the work of Tournai artists, and 
most of its three hundred and eighty titles are 
of local rather than international interest. 
There are several works, however, of the high- 
est rank, and the museum as a whole serves ad- 
mirably to illustrate the fact that the traditions 
and inspiration of the first great masters of 
Flemish painting, whose work has made the 
name of Tournai illustrious for all time, have 
never been wholly forgotten in their native city. 







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Seven Centuries of Tournaisian Art 273 

To be sure, there is nothing to represent Rob- 
ert Campin or Jacques Daret, nor had the care- 
taker ever heard of either of them — a fact 
hardly to be wondered at, since the works of 
the former have not yet been fully identified by 
the critics. Van der Weyden is credited with 
a '' Descent from the Cross " in the museum 
catalogue, but many critics hold this to be a 
copy of a lost work by Hugo Van der Goes. 
Those in charge of the museum have wisely in- 
cluded some excellent photographs of the more 
famous works by Van der Weyden in the lead- 
ing European galleries — a plan that might 
well be followed with respect to the other nota- 
ble works by Tournaisian artists. The master- 
piece of the collection is the well known ' ' Last 
Honours to Counts Egmont and Horn," by 
Louis Gallait, the greatest of Toumai's mod- 
ern artists, whose statue stands in the little 
park before the railway station. A replica of 
this fine but gruesome work was painted by the 
artist for the Antwerp museum. The Tournai 
museum contains nearly a dozen other works 
bequeathed to the city by this painter, includ- 
ing several admirable portraits — a branch in 
which he was especially skilful. The powerful 
*' Abdication of Charles V " by this master 
hangs in the Brussels museum, and his notable 



274 The Spell of Flanders 

" Last Moments of the Comte d'Egmont " in 
the museum of Berlin. 

Equally fine in a very different way, but less 
widely known, is a spirited painting by a com- 
paratively unknown artist, Van Severdonck, 
representing the Princess of Epinoy valiantly 
defending a breach in the walls during the siege 
of Tournai in 1581. We were unable to obtain 
a photograph of this admirable work as it is 
so hung that it is difficult to get a good light 
upon it. A fine portrait of St. Donatian is at- 
tributed in the catalogue to Jan Gossaert or 
Mabuse (from Maubeuge where he was born). 
By some critics it is assigned to Bellegambe, 
who was born at Douai in French Flanders and 
was a contemporary of Gossaert. The mu- 
seum also contains works by Hennebicq, who 
painted the historical picture of Philip Augus- 
tus granting a charter to the city of Tour- 
nai in the Hotel de Ville; Hennequin, the 
teacher of Gallait; Stallaert, whose " Death of 
Dido " is in the museum of Brussels, and sev- 
eral other natives of Tournai who are less well 
known. From Robert Campin, who settled at 
Tournai about 1406 and died in 1444, to Louis 
Gallait, 'whose three great masterpieces were 
painted between 1840 and 1850, and to Stallaert 
and Hennebicq, who laid aside their brushes in 



Seven Centuries of Tournaisian Art 275 

the first decade of the present century, there 
extends a period of five hundred years during 
which the noble art of painting has been prac- 
tised and taught at Tournai by men of com- 
manding genius — a record in the history of 
art that no town in the world of similar size 
has ever equalled. 

It is worthy of remark, in passing, that the 
art of sculpture which was practised at Tour- 
nai with such notable success as early as the 
thirteenth century, and steadily thereafter for 
several hundred years, has not survived to the 
present day. There are no modern sculptors 
in the list of Tournaisian artists, but the cathe- 
dral is a veritable museum of the stone carv- 
ings of the past. The men of the chisel, more- 
over, must be credited with giving some of the 
inspiration that made the work of the early 
artists of the brush so notable. Van der Wey- 
den, particularly, shows the influence of sculp- 
ture and a marked appreciation of its effects in 
the framework and backgrounds of many of his 
pictures. Moreover, for several centuries the 
sculptors of Tournai enjoyed a renown that 
extended throughout Flanders and northern 
France. In the churches of Tournai and of 
many other cities examples of their work can 
be seen that show a continuous record of 



^76 The Spell of Flanders 

acliievement from the twelfth to the sixteenth 
centuries. 

Closely allied to the carvers of stone were 
those who worked in metals and of these Tour- 
nai had its full share. A street of the Gold- 
smiths (rue des Orfevres) near the Grande 
Place indicates the importance of that industry 
in ancient times. The best example of this 
branch of Tournaisian art is to be found in the 
treasury of the cathedral. This is the superb 
Chasse, or Reliquary of St. Eleuthereus, which 
is considered to be one of the finest products 
of the goldsmith's art during the Middle Ages. 
While the name of the maker of this master- 
piece is unknown, it is unquestionably of Tour- 
naisian origin and was completed in 1247. 
Built in the form of a sarcophagus, and made 
of silver, heavily gilded, it is almost bewilder- 
ing in the richness and intricacy of its decora- 
tions and filigrees. At one end is a large 
seated figure of Christ, at the other of St. Eleu- 
thereus, while the sides contain figures of the 
Virgin and the Apostles. Around, above and 
below these chief figures the artist has placed 
a labyrinth of minor ones, of churches and 
landscapes, of columns, arches and architec- 
tural embellishments, all carved with a richness 
of design that cannot be adequately described. 



Seven Centuries of Tournaisian Art 277 

Still older, for it dates from 1205, is the Chasse 
de Notre Dame, another treasure of the cathe- 
dral. This was made by Nicolas de Verdun, a 
citizen of Tournai, and is of wood, painted and 
adorned with curious bas-reliefs representing 
incidents from the New Testament. A third 
chasse, which on account of its great value is 
kept under lock and key in the treasury, like 
that of St. Eleuthereus, is called the Chasse des 
Damoiseaux. It is made of silver and bears 
in relief, and enamelled, the arms of some of 
the patrician families of the city in the thir- 
teenth and fourteenth centuries, when the Con- 
frerie des Damoiseaux held many brilliant tour- 
naments in Tournai and other cities. This 
chasse, the keeper told us, was not made at 
Tournai, but at Bruges. Although very beau- 
tiful, it is not considered so notable a work of 
art as its companion. 

During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries 
Tournai rivalled Dinant as a producer of fine 
copper and brassware, and in this industry the 
artistic instincts of its citizens soon led them to 
produce pieces of remarkable distinction. One 
of the finest of these is the baptismal font in 
the church of Notre Dame at Hal, made in 1446. 
The artisans of Tournai turned out a prodi- 
gious number of fine products of the copper- 



278 The Spell of Flanders 

smith's art during the two centuries mentioned 

— lamps, candlesticks, chandeliers, funeral 
monuments, crucifixes and other religious arti- 
cles ; and, in fact, it was not until the eighteenth 
century that this industry declined, only to give 
place to the manufacture of gilded bronze ware. 

The cathedral and the museum of antiquities 
contain some choice examples of another great 
Tournaisian art industry of the Middle Ages 

— the manufacture of rich tapestries. During 
the fourteenth century the renown of the prod- 
ucts of Tournai in this field was already consid- 
erable, and between 1440 and 1480 its artisans 
surpassed even those of Arras. In richness of 
colouring, diversity and sprightliness of sub- 
jects, beauty of design and workmanship, the 
tapestries of Tournai rank among the finest art 
productions of the Middle Ages. In 1477, when 
Louis XI seized Arras and dispersed its work- 
men, many of them fled to Tournai, Auden- 
aerde and Brussels, establishing the industrj'^ 
in those cities. Tournai, where it had already 
made great progress, was the first to benefit by 
this emigration and for a time became the lead- 
ing tapestiy-making centre in Europe. It was 
the school of Tournai that was the true fore- 
runner of the still more famous tapestry weav- 
ers of Brussels in depicting historical and 



Seven Centuries of Tournaisian Art 279 

mythological scenes of the utmost vivacity and 
richness, while the ateliers of Audenaerde spe- 
cialised more largely in quieter pastoral scenes 
and landscapes. Philip the Good, the most fas- 
tidious connoisseur of his age, ordered several 
tapestries at Toumai, including the history of 
Gideon in eight panels to decorate the Hall of 
the Order of the Golden Fleece. In the cathe- 
dral the most notable of the Tournai tapestries 
illustrates vividly the story of Joseph, while 
one of the best in the museum depicts the his- 
tory of Abraham — the angels announcing the 
birth of Isaac. The border of a Tournai tap- 
estry usually bears the mark of the ateliers of 
that city, a castle tower, which is plainly to be 
seen on the one last mentioned. The cathedral 
also possesses a remarkable tapestry of Arras, 
made by Pierrot Fere in .1402, and depicting in- 
cidents connected with the lives of St. Piat and 
St. Eleuthereus and the plague at Tournai. 
This masterpiece originally hung above the 
stalls in the choir, and more than half of it 
has been destroyed at one time or another. 
The remainder has been placed in a continuous 
panel, like a panorama, around a semi-circular 
chapel back of the treasury, and constitutes one 
of the most curious relics of the mediaeval art 
to be seen in Europe. According to some au- 



280 The Spell of Flanders 

thorities tlie designs for this work were drawn 
by one of the artists of the Tournai school of 
painters from which Van der Weyden subse- 
quently received his instruction. At all events 
the scenes are extremely naive, and the artist 
has inserted sundry little devils who are giving 
expression to their contempt of the various re- 
ligious ceremonies depicted in some of the sec- 
tions in a manner that, to say the least, is most 
unconventional. 

The wars and troubles of the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries very nearly extinguished 
the art industries of Tournai, the number of 
master-weavers of tapestries declining from 
two hundred and fourteen between 1538 and 
1553 to forty in 1693, and twenty-nine in 1738. 
It was only a few years after the last date, 
however, when a new art industry became es- 
tablished in the city. In 1751 a native of Lille, 
named Francois Peterink, began the manufac- 
ture at Tournai of fine porcelains. Dinner sets 
elaborately decorated and daintily formed, 
vases, statues and statuettes of '' biscuit " 
equal to the finest products of Sevres, Saxony 
or England, were turned out in considerable 
quantities for more than a century, and the por- 
celains of Tournai became so renowned that 
princes vied with one another to secure these 



Seven Centuries of Tournaisian Art 281 

works of art. It is still possible for the col- 
lector to secure some of these fine products, the 
trademarks being a rude castle tower or two 
crossed swords with tiny crosses at their inter- 
secting angles. In the finest tableware these 
are usually in gold, but red or some other col- 
our should not be despised, as the genuine 
Tournai ware is becoming rare and already 
brings high prices. These marks, it should be 
added, have been imitated, and the amateur will 
do well to consult expert advice before purchas- 
ing. 

Still another noteworthy art industry of 
Tournai merits at least a word in passing. 
From the very earliest period after the art of 
making stained or painted glass was invented 
the ateliers of the ' ' Ville d 'Art ' ' have excelled 
in this fine branch of handicraft. During the 
fifteenth century Tournaisian artists made the 
seven stained glass windows in the transept of 
the cathedral that depict in glowing colours the 
history of the contest between Childeric and 
Sigebert and the donations and privileges 
granted to the bishop and the cathedral by Chil- 
peric. Not only are these scenes of the utmost 
interest historically, but the student of cos- 
tumes and customs during the Middle Ages and 
the student of early Flemish art will both find 



282 The Spell of Flanders 

in them abundant material for study. It has 
already been said that the cathedral of Tournai 
is in itself a history of Flemish architecture 
covering a period of well-nigh a thousand years. 
It is also a veritable museum of Flemish art, 
and especially of Tournaisian art, in almost all 
of its many branches. 

In the eighteenth century the apparently in- 
extinguishable artistic spirit of Tournai found 
expression in the production of carpets that 
recalled the best period of its tapestry weavers. 
The carpet in the cabinet of Napoleon at Fon- 
tainebleau and the celebrated carpet of the Le- 
gion of Honour, which was shown in the French 
pavilion at the recent exposition at Turin, were 
made at Tournai during this period. At the 
same epoch the goldsmiths and coppersmiths, 
whose activities had never entirely ceased dur- 
ing the centuries of trouble, began once more to 
turn out their artistic products in considerable 
quantities, nor have these ateliers entirely 
ceased operations at Tournai to this day. 
* Truly the name ' ' Ville d 'Art ' ' has been fairly 
won and kept by this little city, if seven cen- 
turies of almost uninterrupted artistic endeav- 
our and achievement count for anything! 

It is a somewhat remarkable feature of mod- 
ern Belgium, however, that while its cities 



Seven Centuries of Tournaisian Art 283 

abound in beautiful and artistic things, the 
common people — both the working classes and 
the bourgeoisie, or fairly prosperous middle- 
class of small merchants and manufacturers — 
seem to have very little interest in pictures or 
works of art, and little or no desire to acquire 
them. The average Belgian home is utterly 
bare of ornament, save perhaps a crucifix or a 
religious image or chromo — if these can be 
termed ornamental. Reproductions of the fine 
masterpieces of painting and statuary in which 
this little country is so rich are incredibly 
scarce and difficult to procure — save only the 
very famous pictures, of which copies have been 
made to sell to tourists in the larger cities. 
Even these the native Belgian apparently never 
buys, and the art stores carry very few col- 
oured prints of moderate price such as are to 
be seen everywhere in the United States. In 
fact, of those we saw a considerable proportion 
were of American manufacture. Of course 
these remarks do not allude to the stores han- 
dling original paintings by ancient and modern 
masters, costly water-colours and etchings. 
These are purchased in Belgium, as everywhere 
else, by the wealthy class, whose homes are as 
rich and artistic as any in the world. It is the 
absence of interest by the two classes first men- 



284 The Spell of Flanders 

tioned that seems to me so remarkable in a 
country that for centuries has been passion- 
ately devoted to art in all its manifestations, 
and, for its population and area, is without 
doubt the world's largest producer of beautiful 
things. 

On the other hand, the Belgian of even the 
humblest social standing is invariably fond of 
flowers. In the cities every woman on her way 
to or from market buys a bouquet for the table, 
while in the country there is no garden without 
its little flower-bed, or flower-bordered paths, 
or rambling rosebushes climbing up the high 
brick garden wall or arching over the entrance. 
This shows an intense and inborn love of the 
beautiful. Why is it, then, that men and 
women whose daily lives are spent in creating 
beautiful things — rare lace, fine wood-carvings, 
rich brass or copper ware — are content with 
homes that are as bare of ornament as any 
prison cell? 




CHAPTEE XIV 

THE FALL OF CHARLES THE BOLD MEMLING 

AT BRUGES 

)HERE are few careers in Mstory more 
fascinating, more spectacular, more dra- 
matic, than tliat of the last Duke of Bur- 
gundy who ruled over Flanders — Charles the 
Bold. Heir to dominions that included all of 
what is now Belgium and Holland, nearly a 
third of France, and portions of what is now 
Germany, Charles was by far the most power- 
ful of the feudal lords of his day, surpassing 
the King of France, and even the Emperor in 
the splendour and wealth of his court and in 
the number of feudal princes and knights 
whom he could summon to his standard. He 
not only had dreams of becoming a king him- 
self, but was, on one occasion, offered a crown 

— the Emperor Frederick III proposing to 
make him King of Brabant. This he refused 

— a serious error, for he could easily have ex- 
tended his royal title, once legally acquired, 
over the rest of his dominions. 

285 



286 The Spell of Flanders 

In " all the pomp and pageantry of power," 
however, Charles was every inch a king — 
magnificent in his hospitality, exceedingly cere- 
monious and punctilious in court etiquette, and 
fond of showing his vast power on every occa- 
sion. On the other hand, he was profoundly 
ignorant of the fact that the real source of his 
wealth and strength was in the great industrial 
communes of Flanders, Brabant and Liege, 
and the cruelty with which he destroyed the 
cities of Liege and Dinant cost him the affec- 
tion and good will of all his people. His great 
antagonist was Louis XI of France — also one 
of the most picturesque figures in history — 
but the exact antithesis of Charles in almost 
every respect. While Charles never received 
a delegation unless seated on a throne, the lof- 
tiness and grandeur of which filled every eye, 
Louis dressed plainly — often wearing the grey 
cloak of a pilgrim, and almost invariably a pil- 
grim's hat, with a leaden image of some saint 
in the hat-band. On one occasion, when he 
paid a visit to his subjects in Normandy, riding 
in company with the gorgeous Duke of Bur- 
gundy, the peasants exclaimed, '' Is that a 
King of France? Why, the whole outfit, man 
and horse, is not worth twenty francs ! ' ' 

Charles, like his father, held his ducal court 



The Fall of Charles the Bold 287 

wherever he might happen to be — both 
princes often carrying a lengthy train of bag- 
gage, including even furniture and tapestries, 
from one castle to another. Bruges, however, 
is identified with some of the most important 
events of his career, and he held his court there 
much oftener than at the ancestral capital of 
Burgundy, Dijon. During the last years of 
the reign of his father, Philip the Good, 
Charles acted as Kegent, and it was during 
this perioti of his rule that he astonished and 
terrified Europe by the ferocity with which he 
avenged an insult to his parents' honour by 
utterly destroying the prosperous city of Di- 
nant and slaughtering most of its male inhabit- 
ants. On his accession to the ducal throne, 
however, the great communes of Ghent, Bruges, 
Malines and Brussels were able to extort 
from their new Duke all of the privileges that 
his father had taken away during his long 
reign. Charles granted these with fury in his 
heart, vowing openly that before long he would 
humble these presumptuous burghers. For- 
tunately for the liberties of the Flemish towns, 
their Duke's attentions were speedily called 
elsewhere and he found no opportunity to 
carry out his threats. 

Fomented by the emissaries of Louis XI, the 



288 The Spell of Flanders 

turbulent citizens of Liege — already a large 
and prosperous manufacturing town, as ad- 
vanced in the metallurgical arts as the Flem- 
ish cities were in the textile industries — rose 
in insurrection against their Bishop-Prince, an 
ally of Charles. With an army of one hundred 
thousand feudal levies Charles quickly sup- 
pressed this revolt. The following year Louis 
ventured to place himself in Charles' power by 
paying him a visit at his powerful castle of 
Peronne. This famous historical incident is 
brilliantly described by Sir Walter Scott in 
Quentin Durward. To the king's alarm and 
very extreme personal danger, the people of 
Liege took the moment of this visit to rise 
again. Charles was furious, and, not unjustly 
considering Louis to be the author of this at- 
tack on his authority, had that monarch locked 
up in a room in the castle. Nor was he pla- 
cated until Louis signed a treaty still further 
extending the power of the Dukes of Burgundy 
in France, and agreed to join Charles in the ex- 
pedition to punish his unruly subjects. This 
time the city after being captured was given 
over to the half-savage Burgundian soldiery to 
be sacked, some forty thousand of its inhabit- 
ants perishing. 
Returning to Flanders, Charles bitterly de- 



The Fall of Charles the Bold 289 

nounced the cautious policy of the burghers in 
refusing to pay tax levies for his armies unless 
they knew how the money was to be spent. 
^' Heavy and hard Flemish heads that you 
are," he cried to a delegation from Ghent, 
^' you always remain fixed in your bad opin- 
ions, but know that others are as wise as you. 
You Flemings, with your hard heads, have al- 
ways either despised or hated your princes. . I 
prefer being hated to being despised. Take 
care to attempt nothing against my highness 
and lordship, for I am powerful enough to re- 
sist you. It would be the story of the iron and 
the earthen pots." 

Presently Louis, repudiating the recent 
treaty as being extorted by force, invaded 
Charles' dominions and captured several cities 
on the Somme. Charles sought to retake them 
and was repulsed both at Amiens and Beau- 
vais, the defenders at the latter place being 
urged to stronger resistance by Jeanne Hach- 
ette, one of the heroic figures of French his- 
tory. Charles now turned his attention to the 
German side of his dominions, and here also 
the implacable enmity of Louis stirred up ene- 
mies for him in every direction. In Alsace 
the people rose in revolt and slew the cruel 
governor Charles had set over them, while the 



290 The Spell of Flanders 

Swiss defeated the Marshal of Burgundy. 
Charles set forth to re-establish his authority 
with an army of thirty thousand men, the 
flower of his feudal levies. The Swiss, 
alarmed, sued for peace, assuring the powerful 
Duke that there was more gold in the spurs 
and bridles of his horsemen than could be 
found in all of Switzerland. 

Charles, however, was bent on punishing 
these impudent mountaineers and ordered the 
invasion of their country. The defenders of 
the little fortress of Granson surrendered on 
the approach of his army, but in flagrant viola- 
tion of the terms he had just granted the Duke 
of Burgundy ordered the entire garrison to be 
hanged. This act was speedily avenged, for 
the Swiss a few days later utterly routed the 
Burgundian forces just outside of Granson. 
The mountaineers in this battle advanced in a 
solid phalanx against which Charles' horsemen 
and archers could make no impression. The 
blow to the pride and prestige of the Duke was 
far more serious than the loss of the engage- 
ment and the scattering of his army. With 
great difficulty he raised fresh levies, the Flem- 
ish communes granting aid only on condition 
that no further subsidies should be demanded 
for six years to come. The battle of Granson 



The Fall of Charles the Bold 291 

took place March 2, 1476. By June lie had 
raised another and a larger army, and on the 
22nd met the Swiss again at Morat. On re- 
viewing his host before the battle, Charles is 
said to have exclaimed, " By St. George, we 
shall now have vengeance ! ' ' but the vengeance 
was not to be always on one side, for the Swiss, 
making their battle-cry ' ' Granson ! Granson ! ' ' 
in remembrance of their countrymen, whom 
Charles had treacherously slain, almost anni- 
hilated his army. The Swiss showed no mercy 
and took no prisoners, while the number of 
killed on the BurgTindian side amounted to 
eighteen thousand. Charles escaped with his 
life, accompanied by a small body of his 
knights. 

For a time it seemed as if his rage and de- 
spair at these two defeats would cause the 
proud Duke to lose his reason, nor could his 
threats or entreaties secure more assistance 
from Flanders. He managed, however, to keep 
the field, and with a small force sat down to be- 
siege Nancy — which had been lost to him 
again after Morat. The town held out stub- 
bornly, as all towns did, now that Charles ' cru- 
elty and treachery to those who surrendered 
were known, and the Burgundian forces suffered 
much hardship from the cold, for it was now 



292 The Spell of Flanders 

mid- winter. On January 5tli Charles gave bat- 
tle to an advancing force of Swiss, was again 
crushed and the greater part of his little army 
killed. After the battle the Duke could not be 
found, and no man knew what had become of 
him. The following day a page reported that 
he had seen his master fall, and could find the 
place. He led the searchers to a little pond 
called the Etang de St. Jean. Here, by the 
border of a little stream, they found a dozen 
despoiled bodies, naked and frozen in the mud 
and ice. One by one they turned these over. 
'' Alas," said the little page presently, " here 
is my good master! " Disfigured, with two 
fearful death wounds, and with part of his face 
eaten by wolves, it was indeed the body of the 
great Duke. 

Even his enemies did honour to the dead 
prince. Clothed in a robe of white satin, with 
a crimson satin mantle, his body was borne in 
state into the town he had vainly sought to con- 
quer, and placed in a velvet bed under a canopy 
of black satin. His remains were interred in 
the church of St. George at Nancy, where 
they remained for more than fifty years. The 
Emperor, Charles V, then had them brought to 
Bruges and placed in the church of St. Dona- 
tian. His son, Philip II, removed them, five 



The Fall of Charles the Bold 293 

years later, to the wonderful shrine in the 
Church of Notre Dame where they remained 
until the French Eevolution, when they were 
scattered to the winds as the bones of a tyrant. 
The sarcophagus, however, of the Duke and his 
gentle daughter, Marie, still remain, as we have 
seen, and are among the finest in existence. 

The death of the powerful Duke of Burgundy 
made a profound impression throughout Eu- 
rope, and still remains, as Mr. Boulger in his 
admirable History of Belgium says, '' one of 
the tragedies of all history." His downfall 
was mainly due to the implacable hostility of 
Louis XI, whom he had once publicly humili- 
ated at Peronne and affected at all times to de- 
spise. Many of the Swiss and Germans who 
fought against him in his last fatal campaign 
were hired mercenaries in the pay of the King 
of France, while some of his most trusted fol- 
lowers and advisers were traitors in constant 
correspondence with his wily and unscrupulous 
antagonist. Had Charles sought to conciliate 
his great Flemish communes instead of intimi- 
date them his reign might have been prolonged 
by their powerful aid, and his dream of estab- 
lishing a kingdom of Burgundy have been real- 
ised. As it was, he failed signally in most of 
his undertakings, and with all his fury and 



294 The Spell of Flanders 

vainglory and cruelty lost in ten years the huge 
power that his father had taken fifty years to 
accumulate. 

Marie, Charles' only daughter, was left by 
his sudden and unexpected death ' ' the greatest 
heiress in Christendom," but also well-nigh 
helpless to rule over or even hold her wide- 
spread dominions. To prevent the King of 
France from taking advantage of this situation 
her Flemish counsellors advised her to accept 
an offer of marriage from Maximilian, son of 
the Emperor Frederick III. and in August of 
the same year that saw the battle of Granson 
they were quietly married at Bruges. This 
event made Flanders a still smaller unit than 
before in a vast aggregation of states that in 
the course of events was being combined under 
the rule of the House of Hapsburg, nor did 
Marie's untimely death, less than five years 
later, in any wise delay the process of consoli- 
dation. 

Bruges, during the stormy reign of Charles 
the Bold and the quarter of a century of anxi- 
ety and troubles for its burghers that followed 
after the battle of Nancy, was steadily losing 
its population and material prosperity, and, at 
the same time, acquiring its greatest claim to 
fame — for it was between the year 1462 and 



The Fall of Charles the Bold 295 

1491 that Memling, the foremost of the early 
Flemish painters, executed the wonderful se- 
ries of masterpieces that have come down to 
us. And it is to Bruges that the student of art 
must come to see the famous Fleming at his 
best, for there are more of his important works 
here than in all the rest of the world put to- 
gether. 

In common with many others in the early 
Gothic school very little is known of the early 
life of Hans Memling, but the recent discovery 
in an old manuscript of a note stating that he 
was born at or near Mayence gives a most in- 
teresting clue both as to his birthplace and the 
origin of his name. In the Ehineland district 
near Mayence there is a small tributary to the 
great river called Memling, and a village 
named Memlingen. It is probable, therefore, 
that — just as the brothers Van Eyck called 
themselves Hubert and Jean of Eyck — so 
their most famous successor called himself Hans 
of Memling. For lack of authentic details 
regarding his early career legend has supplied 
a most interesting history — that he was wild 
and dissolute in his younger days, was wounded 
while fighting with Charles the Bold at Nancy, 
dragged himself to the door of the hospital of 
St. Jean at Bruges, and was there tenderly 



296 The Spell of Flanders 

nursed back to health and strength, in grati- 
tude for which he painted for the kind sisters 
the little gallery of fine works that are still pre- 
served in the original chapter house of the in- 
stitution. All of this romance, and that of his 
love for one of the sisters, makes a charming 
background for many of the accounts of his life 
and work, but the painstaking scholarship of 
modern days has shown that at the time when 
he was supposed to be lying wounded and des- 
titute at the hospital he was in fact very pros- 
perous, having lately bought the house in which 
he lived and his name appearing as one of the 
leading citizens of whom the commune had bor- 
rowed money. It is perhaps pleasanter on the 
whole to think of the artist as rich and hon- 
oured instead of at the other extreme of the 
social scale — but the legend is, after all, so 
much more romantic that we cannot give it up 
without regret. 

At Bruges the first spot for the admirer of 
Memling to visit is, of course, the hospital of 
St. Jean, and at the hospital the first thing to 
see is the world-famous shrine of St. Ursula. 
Little it is, yet beyond price in value. It was 
constructed as a casket to contain the relics 
of the Saint and was completed in 1489. In 
design it is a miniature Gothic chapel two feet 




SHRINE OF ST. URSULA, HOSPITAL OF ST. JEAN BRUGES. 



The Fall of Charles the Bold 297 

ten inches high and three feet long", with three 
little panels on each side which contain Mem- 
ling's famous pictures setting forth the life 
and martyrdom of the Saint and the eleven 
thousand other virgins who shared her fate. 
The story of the famous pilgrimage to Eome 
and its melancholy ending at Cologne has been 
told so often that it need not be repeated here. 
Ask one of the sisters to tell it to you in her 
charming broken French — for they are Flem- 
ish, these sweet-faced sisters, and, as a rule, 
understand neither French nor English. 

This fact is said to have served them in good 
stead on the terrible day when the bandit-sol- 
diery of the French Republic clamoured at the 
doors of the hospital in 1494. " The shrine! 
the shrine ! ' ' they cried, ' ' give us the shrine ! ' ' 
{" La chdsse, la chdsse, donnez nous la 
chdsse! ") The nuns, who had never heard it 
called by that name, but knew it only by its 
Flemish name of Ryve, replied that they did 
not possess such a thing as a chdsse, and 
their voices and expressions so clearly showed 
their truthfulness and innocence of any deceit 
that the rabble of soldiers went away and the 
shrine was saved. Early in the nineteenth 
century the Mother Superior refused a most 
tempting offer to purchase the shrine, reply- 



298 The Spell of Flanders 

ing, '' We are poor, but the greatest riches in 
the world would not tempt us to part with it. ' ' 
While the paintings on the shrine are the 
most famous of Memling's works, they are not 
regarded by the critics as being his best. As Mr. 
Eooses expresses it, " The artist seems to have 
been less intent on perfection of detail for 
each figure than on the marvellous polychromy 
of the whole." The hospital of St. Jean pos- 
sesses three of the master's greatest works — 
two triptychs entitled *' The Marriage of St. 
Catherine " and " The Adoration of the 
Magi," and the diptych representing the Ma- 
donna and Martin Van Nieuwenhove. The 
museum at Bruges contains still another mas- 
terpiece, a picture showing in the centre St. 
Christopher, St. Maurus and St. Giles — the 
first bearing the Infant Christ upon his shoul- 
ders — while the two shutters contain the 
usual portraits of the donors. One of Mem- 
ling's most important works was a picture of 
*' The Last Judgment " which was painted for 
an Italian, Jacopo Tani, and placed on board 
ship to be sent to Florence by sea. The ship 
was captured by privateers in the English 
Channel, and as its owners were citizens of 
Dantzig it was presented by them to the Church 
of Our Lady in that city, where it still remains. 



The FaU of Charles the Bold 299 

There are several admirable works by this 
master at the musemns of Brussels and Ant- 
werp, while others are scattered throughout 
Europe, and one particularly fine example of 
his art was brought to America by the late 
Benjamin Altman and now hangs in the Alt- 
man collection at the Metropolitan Museum at 
New York. 

While the chief interest to the visitor at the 
hospital of St. Jean is the remarkable collec- 
tion of works by Memling, the old buildings 
themselves merit more than a casual glance. 
Some of them date from the twelfth century, 
and the view looking back at the ancient water- 
front from the bridge by which the rue St. 
Catherine here crosses the river is particularly 
picturesque. The old brick structures go down 
to the very water's edge, and sometimes below 
it, and the entire pile from this side must look 
much as it did in Memling 's day. 

Another artist whose work sheds lustre on 
the old town of Bruges was Gheerhardt David. 
For nearly four centuries his name and even 
his very existence were forgotten, his paintings 
being attributed to Memling — in itself a high 
evidence of their merit. Eecent studies by 
James Weale and other scholars have given 
us quite a complete life of this artist, who lived 



300 The Spell of Flanders 

between 1460 and 1523, and a number of bis 
works bave been identified. All of tbese seem 
to bave been painted at Bruges, and some of 
tbe more notable ones still remain tbere. Tbe 
municipal autborities commissioned bim to 
paint two great pictures representing notable 
examples of justice sucb as Van der Weyden 
bad done for tbe Hotel de Ville at Brussels. 
Tbese depict tbe flaying alive of tbe unjust 
Judge Sisamnes by Cambyses, King of Persia, 
and are still preserved in tbe museum at 
Bruges. Tbe museum also possesses anotber 
masterpiece by tbis artist, ^' Tbe Baptism of 
Cbrist." Otbers tbat bave been identified 
tbrougb painstaking study of tbe old arcbives 
of tbe city and contemporary sources are lo- 
cated in tbe National Gallery at London and in 
tbe museum of Kouen. 

Tbe prosperity of Bruges was declining very 
fast wbile David was painting tbe last of bis 
religious pictures and tbe mercbants were 
steadily leaving tbe city for Antwerp, wbicb 
was now rising into importance. Tbe artists, 
wbose prosperity depended upon tbe wealtb of 
tbe burgbers were also drifting to tbe new com- 
mercial metropolis on tbe Scbeldt and tbe fa- 
mous scbool of Bruges was near its end by tbe 
middle of the sixteenth century. Tbe last art- 



-'^tiiiiiiMltiinanon i?y unt'erhard! David of Bruges, 
- 14.98; St. Barhara ' " 




■^fe 








The FaU of Charles the Bold 301 

ists who worked at Bruges were of minor in- 
terest. Adriaen Ysenbrant, Albert Cornelis 
and Jean Prevost belong to tliis period, and 
their most important works are still preserved 
in the city where they were executed. " The 
Virgin of the Seven Sorrows," in the church 
of Notre Dame, is attributed to the first, a 
triptych in the church of St. Jacques to the 
second, while the museum has several pictures 
by Prevost, including an interesting '^ Last 
Judgment," and another striking representa- 
tion of the same subject by Pieter Pourbus, of 
which there is a copy in the Palais du Franc. 
The masterpieces by Jean Van Eyck in this 
museum have already been mentioned, and the 
small but exceedingly rich collection also in- 
cludes a fine production entitled '' The Death 
of the Virgin," which is now generally attrib- 
uted to Hugo Van der Goes — one of the com- 
paratively few works by that master that have 
come down to us. There are also several other 
works by P. Pourbus, and a powerful allegor- 
ical picture by Jean Prevost representing 
Avarice and Death. There is undoubtedly 
no collection of paintings in the world of which 
the average value is so great as that of the lit- 
tle group in the hospital of St. Jean, and the 
one in the Bruges museum — while it has quite 



S02 The Spell of Flanders 

a few of minor interest and value — would also 
bring a very high average if subjected to the 
bidding of the world's millionaire art lovers. 

Bruges possesses another museum of great 
interest which dates from the days of the last 
Dukes of Burgundy. This is the Gruuthuise 
mansion, of which the oldest wing was built 
in 1420, and much of the finer portion about 
1470 by Louis, or Lodewyk, Van der Gruuthuise, 
who here entertained Charles the Bold and his 
pretty daughter — becoming one of the latter 's 
chief advisers on the death of her father and 
one of the two Flemish noblemen who witnessed 
her marriage. The stately old palace is there- 
fore rich with historic associations. As we 
entered its broad courtyard, however, we were 
most unfavourably impressed by its rough- 
paved surface with the grass growing thick be- 
tween the stones. Surely this must have looked 
very different in the days when knights and 
fair ladies swarmed here like bees, and the city, 
which has so carefully restored everything 
else, would do well to at least park this other- 
wise very pretty little enclosure. The interior is 
both pleasing and disappointing. The edifice 
itself is superb as a survival of a nobleman's 
palace of the fifteenth century, and as an ex- 
ample of Flemish interior architecture. The 



The Pall of Charles the Bold 303 

grand stone staircase, the massive fireplaces, 
also in white stone, and one or two of the rooms 
in their entirety give a fine impression of the 
splendour of the establishment maintained by 
the great Lord of Gruuthuise in the days when 
he counted King Edward IV of England and 
Eichard Crookback among his guests, and was 
engaged in collecting the marvellous library 
now in Paris. Everywhere, over the fire- 
places, and in various stone carvings, one reads 
the proud motto of the powerful builders of 
this palace, Plus est en nous. 

When the palace was in course of restora- 
tion some years ago the workmen uncovered a 
secret chamber behind the great stone fireplace 
in the kitchen, concealed within the masonry of 
the huge chimney, and within it the skeleton of 
a man. A secret staircase was also discovered 
here which led to two underground passages 
branching off in opposite directions. Strangely 
enough neither of them has ever been explored, 
but one is supposed to lead to the vaults be- 
neath the adjoining church of Notre Dame, and 
the other to some point outside the city walls. 
Some have conjectured that it leads to the 
Chateau of Maele, some four miles distant, but 
probably it went to the manor of the Lords of 
Gruuthuise at Oostcamp. Within this man- 



304 The Spell of Flanders 

sion a modern Sir Walter Scott could easily 
conjure forth a new series of Waverley novels 
treating of the stirring days when Bruges was 
virtually the capital of Flanders and Flanders 
was the brightest jewel in the Burgnndian 
crown. 

All this is most fascinating, and, as far as it 
goes, helps us to reconstruct in fancy the great 
days of the past. The disappointing feature 
about the palace is the museum itself, which, 
although interesting and valuable, utterly 
spoils many of the fine rooms by converting 
them into mere exhibition places. In a meas- 
ure the authorities have followed the admi- 
rable plan of the owners of the Hotel Merghe- 
lynck at Ypres, and the immense kitchen, for 
example, contains only kitchen utensils of the 
Middle Ages — a most complete and interest- 
ing collection. The same is also true of the 
large dining-room on the same floor, but as one 
proceeds farther the atmosphere of antiquity 
becomes lost and it is all nothing but museum. 
The palace contains a splendid collection of old 
lace, the gift of the Baroness Liedts, but it 
seemed to us that it would have been much bet- 
ter to have housed this and the various collec- 
tions of antiquities in some less famous and 
historic structure and endeavoured to restore 



The Fall of Charles the Bold 305 

all of these rooms to approximately their con- 
dition when Charles the Bold stalked through 
them. 

The period of Philip the Good and his ter- 
rible son was the one in which mediasval Bruges 
took on substantially its present form. In ad- 
dition to the Gruuthuise Palace scores of im- 
portant edifices, public and private, were built 
or rebuilt at this time, while hundreds of 
smaller houses were constructed — of which 
many remain in existence to-day. The great- 
est and most famous edifice dating in large part 
from this epoch is the cathedral of St. Sauveur 
whose grim, castle-like tower dominates the 
entire city. The lowest part of the tower dates 
from 1116-1127 — as already related in the 
chapter on Bruges under Charles the Good — 
when the church was rebuilt after a fire that 
destroyed the primitive structure erected on 
the site a century or more earlier. Between 
1250 and 1346, or for almost a century, the men 
of Bruges were slowly piling up a noble church 
in the early Gothic style, but another fire in 
1358 necessitated rebuilding the nave and tran- 
sept — a task which occupied the next ten or 
fifteen years. In 1480 work was begun upon 
the five chapels of the choir and nine years 
later the Pope, Innocent VIII, granted a spe- 



306 The Spell of Flanders 

cial Bull of Indulgence in favour of benefac- 
tors of this work, which appears to have been 
delayed for lack of funds. Work of various 
kinds was continued until the middle of the six- 
teenth century, but, in the main, the great 
church was -nearly as we see it now by the 
year 1511. The upper part of the tower is 
comparatively modern, dating from 1846, and 
the spire from 1871. "While it has been crit- 
icised by some as ungainly and cumbrous, the 
effect of this tower, from whatever angle it 
may be viewed, is very pleasing. The high 
lights and shadows on a sunny morning, or 
late in the afternoon, make it far more beauti- 
ful than its sister of Notre Dame, while against 
the grey cloud masses of a typical Flemish sky 
its huge tawny mass stands out sharp and 
clear, the embodiment of majesty and strength. 
The interior of the church is very large, 
measuring three hundred and thirty-one feet 
by one hundred and twenty-five feet, with an 
extreme width of one hundred and seventy- 
four feet across the transepts. Its polychrome 
decorations and stained glass windows are 
modern. In another place the wealth of art 
treasures in this church would merit a chap- 
ter, but in Bruges they are so overshadowed 
by the many masterpieces to be seen elsewhere 




THE LAST SUPPER. THIERRY BOUTS. 



The Pall of Charles the Bold 307 

that we felt somewhat satiated after such a 
feast and spent very little time looking at the 
pictures here. The most famous one is a 
'' Martyrdom of St. Hippolytus," by Dierick 
Bouts, which is interesting because so few ex- 
amples of this primitive master are in exist- 
ence. It is a triptych, the central panel show- 
ing the saint about to be torn to pieces by wild 
horses, on the left an incident in the life of the 
saint, and on the right the donors. The last 
picture has been attributed by many critics to 
Hugo Van der Goes, and for many years the 
entire picture was thought to be the work of 
Memling. Bouts delighted in unpleasant sub- 
jects, which he depicted with great realism. 
Dierick, or Thierry, Bouts settled at Louvain 
about the middle of the fifteenth century. Be- 
yond the fact that he came from Haarlem noth- 
ing is known of his early life and training, but 
as Van der Weyden of Tournai had done some 
important work at Louvain it is likely that 
Bouts may have derived some of his inspira- 
tion from studying the methods of that master. 
He was a contemporary of Memling. Two of 
his paintings, ''The Last Supper" and the 
gruesome " Martyrdom of St. Erasmus," were 
executed for the wealthy brotherhood of the 
Holy Sacrament and were hung in the. church 



308 The Spell of Flanders 

of St. Peter.^ Bouts became the official painter 
for the city of Louvain and produced a *' Last 
Judgment " for the hall of the echevins which 
has since been lost, and two panels for the 
council-room of the Hotel de Ville represent- 
ing ' ^ The Judgment of Otho. ' ' These are now 
in the museum at Brussels. The Queen hav- 
ing accused an earl of offending her honour, 
the latter is decapitated. The head is then 
given to his Countess, together with a glowing 
bar of iron. In the second panel she is shown 
triumphantly holding both, the hot iron refus- 
ing to bum her and thereby vindicating her hus- 
band 's innocence. The result of the ordeal is 
shown in the distance where the false Queen 
is being executed at the stake. These pictures 
were ordered, in imitation of those painted by 
Van der Weyden for the Hotel de Ville at 
Brussels, as part of a series of panels designed 
to instil the love of virtue and justice into the 
minds of the magistrates and people. The 
artist's death prevented his completing two 
other panels that the archives of Louvain 
show had been ordered. Besides this *' Mar- 
tyrdom of St. Hippolytus " a comparatively 
small number of other works from his brush 

1 Tliey were probably destroyed during the burning of Lou- 
-pain by the Germans. 



The Fall of Charles the Bold 309 

are listed in the catalogues of various Eu- 
ropean museums. 

Of the other structures in Bruges of to-day 
there are a score that merit a visit from those 
who are interested in the city's splendid past, 
and that date for the most part from the last 
years of the Burgundian period. In the rue 
des Aiguilles there still exists a fragment of 
the Hotel Bladelin, the town house of Peter 
Bladelin, who was for many years Controller- 
General of Finance, Treasurer of the Order of 
the Golden Fleece, and the trusted agent of 
the Dukes in all manner of business and pri- 
vate atfairs. Peter subsequently built the 
town of Middleburg, for the church in which 
Van der Weyden painted one of his most fa- 
mous pictures. The Ghistelhof in the same 
street also dates from this epoch, and was built 
by the Lords of Ghistelle. Then there is the 
Hotel d'Adomes and the church of Jerusalem, 
which was formerly the private chapel of the 
rich brothers Anselm and John Adornes. 
There is still a fine mediaeval atmosphere lin- 
gering about this group of buildings, although 
much altered from what they were in their 
prime. The church itself is most curious, and 
beneath the choir is a crypt that leads to a re- 
production of the Holy Sepulchre, said to be a 



310 The Spell of Flanders 

facsimile of the one in the garden of Joseph 
of Arimathea. It would take a volume to cite 
all of the fine old structures of which traces 
still exist in this, the most picturesque of all 
the Flemish cities. The reader who desires to 
find them all cannot do better than to take 
Ernest Gilliat-Smith's brilliant Story of Bruges 
with him and look for them, one by one. For 
those who cannot devote a week or more to this 
delightful task a quicker way to see the Bruges 
of Charles the Bold is to stroll slowly along the 
Quai Vert, the Quai des Marbriers and the Quai 
du Rosaire and let the beautiful vistas of the 
Vieux Bourg with its quaint red roofs and 
noble towers become engraved upon the mem- 
ory, for here, more completely thaA anywhere 
else, one can see the Bruges of the past much 
as it looked in the day of its greatest splendour 
when it was about to sink into its long sleep. 
Thus far Bruges has not suffered seriously 
from the war, and it is profoundly to be hoped 
that no bombardment such as crumbled its fair 
neighbour Termonde into utter ruin will create 
similar havoc amid these indescribably beau- 
tiful scenes. . A few hours would suffice to de- 
stroy artistic and architectural treasures of a 
value that would make the destruction of Lou- 
vain seem of little consequence in comparison. 




QUAI VERT, BRUGES. 




CHAPTEE XV 

MALINES IIT THE TIME OP MAKGAEET OF AUSTEIA 

jINCE this chapter was written the ill- 
fated city of Malines has been swept 
with shot and shell for many days to- 
gether, its once happy and prosperous inhabit- 
ants driven far and wide — many of them into 
foreign lands — and it is donbtful if a single 
one of the various ancient edifices which we 
visited last June has escaped injury. Notwith- 
standing these sad facts it has seemed best to 
retain the chapter substantially as it was writ- 
ten, inasmuch as it affords a pen picture of 
the old town as it looked on the very eve of its 
destruction. Let us hope that when the war is 
over it will be found that most, if not all, of 
its famous old structures can be restored 
again. As the scene of some of the most stub- 
born conflicts of the great war, it is likely that 
the city will be more generally visited by tour- 
ists than was the case when its architectural 
and artistic treasures were uninjured, save by 

311 



312 The Spell of Flanders 

the gentle hand of time. To those who thus 
visit it the following account of the Malines 
that was may prove interesting. 

Situated midway between Antwerp and 
Brussels, on a route formerly traversed by 
scores of rapldes every day, the ancient city 
of Malines — which is the French spelling, 
the Flemish being Mechelen — was exception- 
ally easy to visit, yet during the three days 
that we spent wandering along its entrancing 
old quays and streets and inspecting its many 
"monuments" we saw not a single tourist. 
This was the more remarkable because Malines 
is not only one of the ver}^ oldest cities in 
Northern Europe, but was for centuries among 
the most famous. For a considerable period 
it was the capital of all the Netherlands, and 
it is still the religious capital of Belgium — 
the archbishop of its cathedral church exercis- 
ing authority over the bishops of Bruges, 
Ghent, Liege, Namur and Toumai. 

No matter from which side one approaches 
the city the first object to be seen is the vast 
square tow^er of the Cathedral of St. Rombaut, 
and as this huge structure — the eighth won- 
der of the world, according to Vauban — domi- 
nates the town, so the church itself has domi- 
nated the history of the city on the Eiver Dyle 




CATHEDRAL OF ST. ROMBAUT, MALINES. 



Malines and Margaret of Austria 313 

for more than eleven centuries. According to 
tradition St. Eombaut, or Rombold, to use the 
English spelling, sought to convert the savage 
tribes inhabiting the marshes that extended 
along the river about the middle of the eighth 
century, the date of his martyrdom being placed 
at 775. A Benedictine abbey was shortly aft- 
erwards established near his tomb, which 
steadily grew in importance and power until 
by the twelfth century it had become one of the 
most important religious institutions in the 
region. During the thirteenth century the 
prince-bishops of Malines became the virtual 
sovereigns of the city, one of them — Gauthier 
Berthout, sometimes called the Great — defeat- 
ing the Duke of Gueldre, who attempted in 
1267 to assert his authority over that of the 
prelate. At this period many of the religious 
institutions of Malines were established under 
the patronage of Gauthier Berthout and his 
successors. 

Meanwhile the comparative immunity of the 
city from the ravages of the wars that so often 
raged at that period between the various feudal 
lords of the region caused great numbers of 
artisans to settle there, particularly weavers, 
while the cloth merchants' guild came to be 
recognised as entitled to a voice in the civil 



314 The Spell of Flanders 

affairs of the commune. Ships, according to 
the chronicles, came up the Eiver Dyle in such 
numbers as to make the commercial activity of 
the town rival that of Antwerp — a statement 
that is hard to believe when one gazes at the 
tiny Eiver Dyle of to-day. However, the ships 
in those days were very small, and the river, 
like so many others in Belgium, was no doubt 
broader then than it is now that the marshes 
have all been drained. The weavers and other 
artisans were a turbulent lot, and it soon be- 
came evident that the bishops lacked the power 
to hold them in check. 

This led to a series of alienations of the tem- 
poral power over the commune to neighbouring 
princes whose armies were strong enough to 
keep the unruly burghers in restraint. The 
first of these was effected in the year 1300 be- 
tween the prince-bishop, Jean Berthout, and 
Jean II, Duke of Brabant. In 1303 the news 
of the great victory gained over the nobility by 
the Flemish communes at Courtrai caused the 
citizens to revolt against their new master, the 
Duke, who besieged the city and finally reduced 
it by starvation. Until this time the Dyle had 
never been bridged, its waters flowing over a 
broad marshy bed. This made the siege the 
more difficult as the attacking forces were sep- 



Malines and Margaret of Austria 315 

arated by the river, and it was five montlis 
before the sturdy burghers yielded. To this 
day an annual procession, called the peyspro- 
cessie, perpetuates the memory of this famous 
siege. 

During the next half century the civil author- 
ity over the city became a veritable shuttle- 
cock of politics and war, shifting back and 
forth between the Dukes of Brabant and the 
Counts of Flanders. It was bought and sold 
like a parcel of real estate, but eventually 
rested with the Counts of Flanders, who had 
first acquired it by purchase in 1333, and were 
finally left in undisputed possession by a 
treaty signed in 1357. Four years later a vio- 
lent insurrection of the weavers and other 
artisans broke out that was only mastered after 
the city had been in their possession fifteen 
days, but with the advent of the Dukes of Bur- 
gundy to the supreme power over all of Flan- 
ders, Brabant, Hainaut and Holland, the un- 
ruly workmen were no longer strong enough 
to resist these redoubtable princes. Great 
numbers of them emigrated to other cities, and 
the cloth industry, after languishing for a time, 
finally disappeared. 

Like most Flemish towns, Malines has its 
principal railway station located on its very 



316 The Spell of Flanders 

outskirts, and as far as possible from the 
Grande Place. A tram car was standing in 
front of the station on the morning of our first 
visit, but it seemed that it did not start for 
ten minutes. A score of roomy two-seated car- 
riages invited our patronage, but we valiantly 
decided to walk. We soon regretted our de- 
cision as the walk proved to be long and hot, 
with very little of interest to see, as the houses 
in this part of the town are comparatively 
modern. At the bridge across the Dyle we 
paused for a few moments to admire the fine 
views that can here be had of the old Church 
Notre Dame au dela de la Dyle to the westward 
and the equally picturesque Notre Dame 
d'Hanswyck to the eastward. Just beyond 
the river is the entrance to the Botanical Gar- 
dens, and as our first visit chanced to be on a 
Friday we walked in unmolested and enjoyed 
the welcome shade and the beautiful landscape 
effects of this charming little park. Later on 
we learned that Friday is the only week-day 
on which admission is free, a fee of ten cents 
being exacted on other days. 

As is the case in most Belgian cities, the 
street from the station to the heart of the town, 
although continuous and straight, changes its 
name more than once. At the outset it is the 



Malines and Margaret of Austria 317 

rue Conscience, then the rue d'Egmont, and 
from the bridge across the Dyle to the Grande 
Place it is named Bruul. Entering the Place 
from this side we paused to admire the tremen- 
dous tower of the cathedral which here burst 
upon us in all its majestic grandeur, although 
the edifice is situated a little to the west of the 
Place itself. In front of us, on the right, was 
a singularly dilapidated ruin, which we learned 
was the old Cloth Hall. Part of it is used as 
a police station, part is vacant with its window 
openings devoid of sashes or glass staring 
blankly at the sky, while part is devoted to 
housing a small museum of municipal antiqui- 
ties. The first Cloth Hall at Malines was de- 
stroyed by fire in 1342, and the new one that 
was begun to replace it was never finished, ow- 
ing to the ruin of the cloth industry during the 
struggles between the artisans and their over- 
lords, and a belfry which it was proposed to 
erect similar to that at Bruges was never be- 
gun. The museum contains a number of pic- 
tures by Malines artists, of historical rather 
than artistic interest, a " Christ on the Cross," 
by Rubens, and a variety of relics of the city's 
famous past. Curiously enough, there is not 
a single piece of lace in the collection, nor any- 
thing to represent the great cloth weaving in- 



318 The Spell of Flanderg 

dustry — the two branches of manufacture to 
which the city owes so much of its former 
wealth and fame. 

Adjoining the Halle aux Draps to the north 
is a fine modern post-office built from designs 
drawn by the great Malines architect of the 
sixteenth century, Rombaut Keldermans, for 
a new Hotel de Ville, which was never built. 
Unfortunately its principal facade overlooks 
the narrow rue de Beffer instead of the Grande 
Place, and its beautiful details cannot be seen 
as effectively as could be desired. In the 
Vieux Palais, the ancient *' Schepenhuis, " or 
house of the bailiffs, situated a little south of 
the Place, we were shown the original design 
by Keldermans. It is kept in a sliding panel 
on the wall and, although somewhat dim with 
age, can still be studied in detail. The modern 
architects of the post-office have reverently 
followed the plans of the great master so that 
at least this one of his many brilliant architec- 
tural dreams has come true, and now stands 
carved in imperishable stone just as his genius 
conceived it nearly four centuries ago. 

To the ancestor of this architect, Jean Kel- 
dermans, is generally attributed the honour of 
designing the tower of St. Rombaut, the archi- 
tectural glory of Malines and one of the most 




TOWER OP THE CATHEDRAL OF ST. ROMBAUT FROM THE 
RUELLE SANS FIN. 



Malines and Margaret of Austria 319 

magnificent structures of the kind in the world. 
There are a thousand places throughout the 
city where the photographer or painter can ob- 
tain attractive views of this masterpiece, but 
perhaps the best of all is from a point some 
distance down the Euelle sans Fin (Little 
Street without End) where a quaint mediaeval 
house forms an arch across the narrow street, 
while behind and far above it rises the majestic 
tower. From whatever standpoint one regards 
the great tower, whether gazing up at its vast 
bulk from directly beneath — a point of view 
that the camera cannot reproduce — or from 
any of the little streets that radiate away from 
it, its grandeur and beauty are equally impres- 
sive. 

Begun in 1452, work on the great tower ad- 
vanced slowly. In 1468, according to a memo- 
rial tablet near the southern side of the tower, 
Gauthier Coolman was buried there. It was 
the custom in the Middle Ages to thus recog- 
nise the magister operis, or creator of the 
work, but it is generally acknowledged that 
Jean Keldermans is entitled to share in the 
credit for this achievement. Jean was the 
first in a family of famous architects, his 
brothers Andre, Mathieu and Antoine I, follow- 
ing the same profession, and their skill being 



320 The Spell of Flanders 

handed down to later generations, of whom the 
most famous were Antoine II, Rombaut and 
Laurent. At the beginning of the sixteenth 
century work on the great tower was stopped, 
owing to lack of funds, after attaining a height 
of three hundred and eighteen feet. The 
plans, of which sketches are still preserved at 
Brussels, called for carrying the spire upward 
to a total height of five hundred and fifty feet, 
and in the ambulatory of the cathedral we 
found a plaster cast showing the spire §is it 
was proposed to erect it. The stones to com- 
plete the work were already cut and brought to 
Malines, but were carried away between 1582 
and 1584 by the Prince of Orange to build the 
town of Willemstadt. Apart from its height, 
this tower is remarkable for its great bulk, 
measuring no less than twenty-five metres in 
diameter at the base. 

On each side for most of its height the ar- 
chitect designed a series of lofty Gothic win- 
dows. Of these the lowest are filled in with 
masonry, except for a tiny window in the cen- 
tre. In the higher ones stone blinds fill in the 
openings, while the topmost pair are wide open 
to the sky. The well-known legend about the 
over-excitable citizen of Malines who cried 
' ' Fire ! ' ' one night after seeing the full moon 



Malines and Margaret of Austria 321 

through these windows gave the people of the 
town for many years the nickname of Maan- 
hlusschers, or moon extinguishers, and also 
gave rise to the slur in the last three words of 
the following Latin distich in which an old 
monkish poet compares the six chief cities of 
Belgium : 

Nohilibus Bruxella viris, Antwerpia Nummis, 
Gandavum laqueis, formosis Bruga puellis, 
Lovanium doctis, gaudet Mechlinia stultis-. 

Brussels is renowned for its noble men, Antwerp 

for its money, 
Ghent for its halters, Bruges for its pretty girls, 
Lou vain for its scholars, Malines (Mechelen) for 

its fools. 

This seems rather hard on Malines, and also 
on Ghent, the allusion to that city referring to 
numerous occasions when its sovereigns hum- 
bled the burghers by forcing them to plead for 
mercy with halters around their necks. 

On the outside of the tower, close to its pres- 
ent summit, is a clock the face of which is 
claimed to be the largest in the world. As the 
same claim is made for the great clock on an 
industrial establishment in Jersey City I will 
simply give the dimensions of the one at 
Malines and let those interested make the com- 
parison for themselves: Diameter of face, 



322 The Spell of Flanders 

13.5 metres; circumference, 41 metres; length 
of hour hand, 3.62 metres; height of figures, 
1.96 metres. The minute hands were originally 
4.25 metres long, but are missing on all four 
sides. This renders the time-piece hardly one 
to be consulted if one is catching a train, as the 
exact minute can only be estimated from the 
position of the hour hand. Furthermore, the 
gilding on the hour hands and on most of the 
figures has become so dim that only the 
strongest eyes can distinguish the former, and 
some of the latter can only be made out from 
their position. As the city appeared to be ex- 
ceedingly proud of the size of this clock it 
seemed strange that the authorities did not 
authorise the expenditure of the small sum nec- 
essary to re-gild it. 

It is a hard climb to the top of the tower, but 
one well worth making, not only for the fine 
panorama of the city that unfolds itself wider 
and wider as one mounts higher, but for the 
opportunity thus afforded of seeing the fine 
carillon, or set of chimes, and the curious 
mechanism operating the clappers that strike 
the hours. Just before reaching the floor upon 
which these are placed the guide conducts the 
visitor to a trap door from which one can look 
down into the interior of the cathedral — a 



Malines and Margaret of Austria 323 

thrilling experience to be enjoyed only by those 
who are not inclined to be dizzy. The massive 
timber work supporting the huge bells was con- 
structed in 1662, but the oldest of the bells 
dates from 1498, or six years after the dis- 
covery of America. The two biggest bells are 
named Salvator and Charles, of which the 
larger one weighs 8,884 kilos, or more than 
nine tons, and requires twelve men to ring it. 
There are four other big bells and forty-five 
for the entire carillon, most of which were cast 
by Pierre Hemony of Amsterdam, the Strad- 
ivarius of bell founders, in 1674. Altogethei; 
they form four octaves, the giants chiming in 
with the others as the music demands. The 
keyboard which operates the little hammers is 
operated by both hand and foot power, and the 
carillonneur who operates it is worthy of the 
splendid instrument at his command, being 
Josef Denyn, the son of an equally famous 
carillonneur, and reputed to be the finest in Eu- 
rope. M. Denyn not only gives frequent con- 
certs at Malines, but also at Antwerp and 
Bruges, as well as in many European cities 
outside of Belgium. 

We made a special trip to Malines one Mon- 
day afternoon in June solely to listen to one 
of these concerts, which takes place on that day 



324 The Spell of Flanders 

between eight and nine in the evening, during 
the months of June, August and September. 
The sleepy old town was thronged with auto- 
mobiles, for the renown of these famous con- 
certs has spread far and wide, and some of 
the cars, we were told, had come from points 
as far away as Ostende, Blankenburghe and 
Heyst, while scores were from Antwerp and 
Brussels. The crowd gathered quietly in the 
streets surrounding the great tower and a 
great silence seemed to pervade the entire city 
as the hour of eight approached. Then, faint 
and far at first, came the first dulcet tones from 
this great organ of the sky, until — as the music 
swelled and more of the larger bells began to 
blend their notes in the harmony — the very 
air seemed vibrant with celestial sounds. The 
selection, as we afterwards learned, was one 
of the Volksliederen, or pieces of folk music 
for the rendition of which M. Denyn is famous. 
As we listened we realised as never before the 
part the ancient carillon was meant to take in 
the daily life of the people. It is, in truth, as 
a French author has beautifully expressed it, 
the orchestra of the poor, giving expression 
through its wondrous notes to their joys and 
their sorrows. On the occasion of great fetes 
its music is light and gay, in attune with the 



Malines and Margaret of Austria 325 

popular rejoicing; in times of public grief the 
carillon gives utterance to notes of lamenta- 
tion; when a famous citizen is being borne to 
his last resting-place through the streets lined 
with silent mourners the carillon sends the 
deep notes of its funeral dirges across the city ; 
in time of war or sudden danger the great bells 
roar the wild tocsin of alarm ; in time of peace 
their softest notes breathe a sweet prayer of 
peace and benediction at eventide. 

While we were visiting the tower we were 
shown the tambour cast in copper by means of 
which the clock strikes the hours, the half 
hours and the quarters. This was cast in 
1783, and two years were required to make the 
sixteen thousand, two hundred square holes 
into which drop the teeth that actuate the strik- 
ing hammers. 

The interior of St. Eombaut, while majestic 
and imposing, is hardly as masterly as the 
tower. On the occasion of our first visit a high 
mass was being celebrated and we reverently 
joined the throng of worshippers. In addition 
to the choir there was a body of some two hun- 
dred young men in the centre of the cathedral 
who participated in the singing, a cure beating 
time for them. Their strong manly voices 
blended finely with the higher notes of the dis- 



326 The Spell of Flanders 

tant choir boys and the deep tones of the or- 
gan. From the top of the choir long crimson 
streamers were suspended, terminating at the 
back of the high altar and giving a rich note of 
colour to the interior, while the light from the 
stained glass windows overhead poured down- 
ward in many-coloured rays upon the throng 
of black-robed priests, with a sprinkling of 
higher dignitaries clad in purple. Truly a pic- 
ture that filled the eye with the pageantry of 
religion, even as the rolling notes of the sonor- 
ous chants filled the ear ! 

After the service was over, and the great 
cathedral, but now so crowded, was deserted, 
we started on our tour of inspection. It would 
be a tedious task to chronicle all of the objects 
of interest. The carved stalls of the Gothic 
choir are far less elaborate in workmanship 
than those at Amiens. The altar by Faid'- 
herbe, a native of Malines, is imposing, but 
not of remarkable merit. The carved pulpit 
in the nave, however, is a veritable masterpiece 
of wood carving by Michel Van der Voort of 
Antwerp, and dates from 1723. Below, St. 
Norbert is shown flung from his horse by a 
thunderbolt, above is the Crucifixion at the left, 
with the Virgin and St. John standing below 
the cross, while at the right is shown a charm- 



Malines and Margaret of Austria 327 

ing representation of the Fall, with Eve offer- 
ing the apple to Adam, both figures embowered 
in a mass of foliage that twines np the stair- 
way to the pulpit and lifts its branches far 
overhead. The masterpiece of the paintings 
is an altarpiece by Van Dyck representing the 
Crucifixion, a notable representation of the 
gradations of grief in the faces of the Virgin 
and Mary Magdalen. The attendant requires 
a franc to uncover this picture. ' ' The Adora- 
tion of the Shepherds," by Erasmus Quellen, 
in the opposite arm of the transept, while less 
famous, is a noble piece of work. 

As would be expected from its great relig- 
ious importance, Malines has numerous minor 
churches that contain much of interest to the 
visitor. The largest of these is Notre Dame 
au dela de la Dyle, situated across the Eiver 
Dyle from the oldest part of the city, but dat- 
ing from the fifteenth century. Here the tour- 
ist usually asks to see '' The Miraculous 
Draught of Fishes," by Eubens, a highly col- 
oured triptych that is only uncovered when one 
pays a franc to the attendant. As this mas- 
ter produced some seventeen hundred known 
works it would cost a small fortune to see them 
all at a franc apiece, but this one dates from 
the artist's best period and is fully worth the 



328 The Spell of Flanders 

price charged to see it. It is vigorous in treat- 
ment, and the Fishmongers' Guild, which pur- 
chased it from the artist in 1618 for sixteen 
hundred florins, certainly got very good value 
for their money. The wings are painted on 
both sides. This church also contains the curi- 
ous Virgin with the Broken Back. According 
to the popular legend her sharp leaning to the 
right is due to the fact that one day, when the 
sacristan of the church failed to wake up in 
time to ring the angelus the lady obligingly did 
it for him, but wrenched her spine in the effort. 
Her smug smirk of satisfaction, as if over a 
duty well performed, no doubt also dates from 
the same incident. 

Hardly less interesting is the ancient church 
of Notre Dame d'Hanswyck, situated on the 
same side of the Dyle as the other Notre Dame 
just described. A chapel was erected on the 
site of this church soon after the country was 
converted from paganism by St. Rombaut, and 
a large church was built near the end of the 
thirteenth century. This, however, was pil- 
laged by the iconoclasts in 1566, riddled by 
shot from the cannon of the Prince of Orange 
in 1572, and finally completely demolished eight 
or nine years later by the Gueux. It was not 
until 1663 that the present edifice was begun. 



Malines and Margaret of Austria 329 

It was designed by Luke Faid'herbe, the fa- 
mous sculptor of Malines and a pupil of 
Eubens, and was built under bis personal su- 
pervision. Tbe church itself is a veritable 
museum of the works of this master. The fi- 
nest and most famous of these are the two bas- 
reliefs in the dome, one showing '' The Nativ- 
ity," and the other '^ The Saviour Falling 
Under the Burden of the Cross." The pulpit, 
by Theodore Verhaegen, is a fine example of 
Flemish wood carving. In this church the 
chief treasure, from the standpoint of its 
priests and parishioners, is the miraculous 
statue of the Virgin, which dates from 988, or 
earlier, according to some authorities. It is 
made of wood, painted and gilded, and is life 
size. Not the least miraculous feat of this in- 
teresting relic of the Middle Ages is its escape 
from destruction, at the hands of the icono- 
clasts, the Gueux, and the French revolution- 
ists. At the period when the church itself was 
destroyed the statue was hidden in a secret 
subterranean passage for nearly a century; 
during the French Eevolution it was succes- 
sively lodged in various houses in the rue 
d'Hanswyck — each time being replaced in the 
church,, after the danger was over, amid great 
popular rejoicing. 



330 The Spell of Flanders 

Another church that is a small art gallery 
is that of St. Jean, not far from the cathedral. 
Here is the fine " Adoration of the Magi," by 
Rubens, which many critics consider one of the 
four best of his ceremonial works. It was 
painted in 1617, the year before '^ The Miracu- 
lous Draught of Fishes," at Notre Dame dela 
de la Dyle, when the artist was fresh from his 
studies in Italy, and before his success had 
caused him to employ a throng of students to 
assist in the production of his works. Fur- 
thermore, it was executed for this very church, 
which still possesses his receipt for the final 
payment, written in Flemish, dated March 24, 
1624, and signed by the artist, '' Pietro Paulo 
Rubens." The price was eighteen hundred flor- 
ins, but for good measure the church obtained 
three small paintings by the great master to 
be hung below the triptych. In 1794 these pic- 
tures were taken to Paris and the ^' Adoration 
of the Magi " was not restored to its original 
position until after the fall of Napoleon. Two 
of the small pictures, " The Adoration of the 
Shepherds " and " The Resurrection," are now 
in the museum of Marseilles — having i;iever 
been returned — while the third, " Christ on 
the Cross," after changing hands .several 
times, was at last purchased by an amateur 



Malines and Margaret of Austria 331 

who recognised its authorship and history and 
restored it to the church of St. Jean. The 
two little pictures on either side of it, often 
attributed to Eubens, are by Luc Franchoys 
the younger. This church also boasts some 
marvellous Flemish wood carvings. Around 
the two pillars of the transept where it inter- 
sects the nave are some bas-reliefs, six alto- 
gether, by Theodore Verhaegen and his pupils, 
that if there was nothing else to see would 
alone justify a visit to St. Jean, while the pul- 
pit by the same master, representing ^' The 
Good Shepherd Preaching to His People," is 
one of the most noteworthy of the numerous 
examples of pulpit carving to be seen in Flan- 
ders. Below the organ are two more admi- 
rable bas-reliefs carved in Flemish oak by 
Pierre Valckx, a pupil of Verhaegen. 

Of the many other churches in the old town 
it would be tedious to speak. Nowhere in all 
Flanders did we see so many black-robed 
priests walking solemnly about — although 
they do not lack in any part of the country. 
All Belgium, in fact, is full of priests, monks 
and nuns, owing to the expulsion of the re- 
ligious orders from France some years ago. 
We frequently engaged them in conversation 
to ascertain more about the monuments we 



332 The Spell of Flanders 

were visiting and invariably found them cour- 
teous and well-informed, and not infrequently 
we were indebted to them for suggestions or 
information of much value. At the same time, 
it must be said that it seems to a layman as 
though there are far too many for so small a 
country, but their fine spirit of devotion dur- 
ing the war — when thousands of them shared 
cheerfully the hardships of the soldiers — will 
never be forgotten. 

Of the civil edifices in Malines the most im- 
portant is the Hotel de Ville. Architecturally 
it is disappointing, save for the older portion, 
which was called Beyaerd, and was purchased 
by the commune in 1383. The greater part of 
the edifice was reconstructed during the eight- 
eenth century. The many rooms in the inte- 
rior are pleasing but hardly notable, nor are 
the paintings and sculptures important save to 
the historian. In the Vieux Palais, the room in 
which the Great Council of the Netherlands 
held its sessions from 1474 to 1618, is still pre- 
served in its original state, while one of the 
ancient paintings on the wall shows the Coun- 
cil in session. In this building also is the curi- 
ous statuette of the Vuyle Bruydegom called 
'* Op-Signorken," whose grinning face and 
quaint mediaeval costume are reproduced on 



Malines and Margaret of Austria 333 

many postcards. The history of this worthy is 
best told in French — and in whispers! 

In our tramps around the narrow, crooked 
streets of the old town, and along its pictur- 
esque quays, we found many fine examples of 
fifteenth and sixteenth century architecture. 
On the Quai au Sel is the House of the Salmon, 
the ancient guildhouse of the fishmongers, 
which dates from 1530, and on the Quai aux 
Avoines we visited the little estaminet entitled 
In het Paradijs, with its two painted reliefs 
of the Fall and Expulsion from Eden, and the 
Maison des Diahles — so called from the carved 
devils that decorate its wooden facade of the 
sixteenth century. The Grand Pont across 
the Dyle to these old quays itself dates from 
the thirteenth century, as its grimy arches tes- 
tify. 

After the defeat and death of Charles the 
Bold at Nancy his widow, Margaret of York, 
transferred her residence to Malines, and here 
she raised and educated the two children of 
her daughter, Marie of Burgundy, Philip the 
Handsome and Margaret of Austria. Their 
father, the Emperor Maximilian, was so occu- 
pied with affairs of state over his widely scat- 
tered realm that he seldom came to the city, 
but from 1480 onward the States General of 



334 The Spell of Flanders 

the Netherlands often met here, and in 1491 
Philip the Handsome presided at a chapter of 
the Order of the Golden Fleece at the cathe- 
dral of St. Rombaut. On his premature death, 
in 1506, Maximilian again became Regent, as 
Philip 's eldest son Charles was barely six years 
old. The following year Maximilian made his 
daughter Margaret of Austria Governess-Gen- 
eral of the Netherlands and guardian of 
Philip's children. Margaret at once chose 
Malines, where she had herself been educated, 
as her seat of government and there she 
reigned as Regent until her death twenty-three 
years later. This period was the golden age 
in the history of the city on the Dyle, its brief 
day of splendour. 

In her infancy Margaret had been be- 
trothed to the son of the King of France, Louis 
XI — the cunning enemy of her house whose 
plots had brought about the ruin of her grand- 
father, Charles the Bold. She was only three, 
and the Prince Dauphin, afterwards Charles 
the Eighth, was only twelve. Nine years later 
a more advantageous alliance caused him to 
renounce this betrothal, and Margaret was 
subsequently married by proxy to the son of 
the King of Spain. On her voyage from 
Flushing to Spain a storm arose which nearly 



Malines and Margaret of Austria 335 

wrecked lier ship, and after it had somewhat 
subsided she and her companions amused them- 
selves by each writing her own epitaph. That 
composed by Margaret, then a sprightly girl of 
eighteen, is well known: 

Cy gist Margot la gentiV Bamoiselle, 
Qu' ha deux marys et encor est pucelle. 

Eventually, however, she arrived safely at 
Burgos, but her young husband. Prince John 
of Asturias, died suddenly seven months later 
of a malignant fever. At the age of nineteen, 
therefore, Margaret had already missed being 
Queen of France and Queen of Spain. After 
two years at the Spanish court, where she was 
very popular, she returned to Flanders, arriv- 
ing in 1500, just in time to be one of the god- 
mothers at the christening of her nephew, 
Charles, at the church of St. Jean in Ghent. 
The following year Margaret married Philibert 
II, Duke of Savoy, surnamed the Handsome, 
who was the same age as herself. This time 
her married life proved to be only a little 
longer than the other, for her husband died in 
1504. Left twice a widow while still in the 
bloom of youth, the Duchess devoted herself 
to poetry and the erection of a church at Brou 
in her second husband's duchy of Savoy. 



336 The Spell of Flanders 

There, on the walls, woodwork, stained glass 
windows and tombs she repeated her last 
motto : 

FORTUNE . INFOETUNE . FORT . UNE 

which has generally been interpreted to mean 
that Fortune and Misfortune have tried sorely 
(fort) one lone woman (une). 

The palace of Margaret of York stood on the 
rue de I'Empereur, where some vestiges of it 
still remain, but Margaret of Savoy and of 
Austria found this edifice inadequate to the 
requirements of a Regent and acquired the 
Hotel de Savoy opposite. This has been re- 
stored and is now used as the Palais de Jus- 
tice, but — apart from its pretty courtyard and 
one fine fireplace — we found very little to re- 
call the glories of the period when the great 
men of all the Netherlands gathered here. 
The edifice was largely reconstructed by Eom- 
baut Keldermans, and it w^as here that the boy- 
hood of the future Emperor Charles the Fifth 
was passed, watched over by his Aunt Mar- 
garet. At the time of her accession as Regent 
Margaret was twenty-seven years old — ' ' a 
fair young woman with golden hair, rounded 
cheeks, a grave mouth, and beautiful clear 
eyes," according to one observer. Her father, 



Malines and Margaret of Austria 337 

the Emperor Maximilian, was very fond and 
proud of her, and the greatest treasure in the 
library in the Vieux Palais is a " graduale," 
or hymnbook, which he presented to her in 
recognition of her services in educating his 
grandchildren. On one of the pages in this 
book is an illuminated picture showing Maxi- 
milian himself seated on a throne surmounted 
by the arms of Austria, with Margaret and the 
youthful Charles and his sister forming part 
of the group gathered in front of him. The 
other illustrations in this priceless volume, all 
of which we were permitted to examine, con- 
sist of religious subjects. 

The events connected with the regency of 
Margaret of Austria belong to the history of 
Europe. More than once she aided her father 
in solving the great problems of government 
and diplomacy with which he was confronted, 
notably in the prominent part she took in the 
negotiations resulting in the LeagTie of Cam- 
brai, which was directed against France — the 
nation to which she always showed an unre- 
lenting hostility for the slight put upon her 
in childhood. In 1516 Charles became of age, 
and two years later — while the new King of 
Spain was visiting his Spanish subjects — 
Margaret was again proclaimed Eegent of the 



338 The Spell of Flanders 

Netherlands. In 1519 Maximilian died, and 
five months later Charles was elected King of 
the Romans, and was chosen Emperor the fol- 
lowing year, succeeding to the widest domin- 
ions ever ruled over by one man in the history 
of Europe. In fact it is doubtful if any sover- 
eign since has exercised so vast a power, as 
the Kings and Emperors of later years have 
had their authority more restricted, while that 
of Charles was absolute. 

In 1529 Margaret brought about the nego- 
tiations that resulted in the famous Ladies' 
Peace between the Pope, the Emperor Charles, 
and the Kings of France, England and 
Bohemia. Margaret represented Spain, and 
Louise of Savoy, her sister-in-law and the 
mother of Francis, the King of France, repre- 
sented that monarch. The result of the con- 
ferences was a treaty that was highly advan- 
tageous to Spain, and a great diplomatic vic- 
tory for Margaret ; but as all Europe was tired 
of war the terms were accepted and peace pro- 
claimed amid great popular rejoicings, the 
fountains at Cambrai flowing wine instead of 
water. The splendid mantelpiece in the Hotel 
de Franc at Bruges was erected to commem- 
orate this treaty, although it hardly does jus- 
tice to the prominent part taken by Margaret 



Malines and Margaret of Austria 339 

in negotiating it. The conclusion of the Treaty 
of Cambrai marks the climax of Margaret's 
career and also that of the House of Austria. 
In addition to the vast empire ruled over by- 
Charles, his brother Ferdinand was King of 
Bohemia, and his sisters Eleanor, Isabel, Marie 
and Katherine, Queens of France, Denmark, 
Hungary and Portugal respectively. All owed 
their briUiant positions to the patience and 
skill of their Aunt Margaret who, as her cor- 
respondence shows, was looking forward to 
the time when she could hand over the govern- 
ment of the Netherlands to the Emperor and 
spend her remaining days in quiet seclusion. 

Under her wise rule the Netherlands had at- 
tained the greatest prosperity ever known. 
Industry and commerce flourished, peace and 
safety reigned throughout her broad domin- 
ions. At her court in Malines Margaret 
gathered a brilliant group of artists, poets and 
men of letters. Mabuse (Jan Grossaert), Ber- 
nard Van Orley and Michel Coxcie were among 
the famous Flemish artists patronised by the 
Duchess. Rombaut Keldermans received many 
commissions as architect from the great Lady 
of Savoy and her Imperial nephew for impor- 
tant edifices not only at Malines but at Ant- 
werp, Brussels, Ghent and throughout the Low 



340 The Spell of Flanders 

Countries. In 1451 the Pope, Nicholas V, had 
proclaimed a Holy Year at Malines and enor- 
mous numbers of pilgrims visited the city in 
consequence. Their lavish gifts made possible 
the rapid erection of most of the splendid re- 
ligious edifices with which the city is so amply 
provided, and it was during the reign of Mar- 
garet that these structures were completed and 
decorated. Among the beautiful buildings ex- 
ecuted during this period may be mentioned 
the Belfry at Bruges, the tower of St. Eom- 
baut, the Hotel de Ville at Ghent, the spire of 
the cathedral at Antwerp, the cathedral of Ste. 
Gudule at Brussels, and many minor churches 
throughout the Low Countries. 

Margaret displayed rare taste for works of 
art, and her palace was a veritable treasure 
house of masterpieces, as an inventory pre- 
pared at her direction shows. One of the most 
famous of these was the portrait of Jean 
Arnolfini and his wife by Jean Van Eyck, 
which — after many vicissitudes — has now 
found a. permanent resting place in the Na- 
tional Gallery at London, unless some militant 
suffragette adds another chapter to its cheq- 
uered history. Another treasure has been 
less fortunate, namely the portrait of La 
helle Portugalaise, wife of Philip the Good, 




PORTRAIT OF JEAN ARNOLPINI AND HIS WIFE BY JEAN VAN 

EYCK. 



Malines and Margaret of Austria 341 



which was painted h^ Jean Van Eyck under 
circumstances already described in another 
chapter. This famous picture disappeared 
during the religious wars and has never been 
discovered. The inventory lists a great many 
other paintings, of which some are still in ex- 
istence and some have been lost. The descrip- 
tions are often quaint and charming, and may 
have been dictated by the Duchess herself, as 
for example: '' Une petite Nostre-Dame di- 
sant ses heures, faicte de la main de Michel 
(Coxcie) que Madame appelle sa mignonne et 
le petit dieu dort/' and '' Ung petit paradis 
ou sont touxs les apotres." Other artists of 
note in the collection were Bernard Van Orley, 
Hans Memling, Eoger Van der Weyden, Die- 
rick Bouts, Jerome Bosch and Gerard Horem- 
bout. 

Among the men of letters whom Margaret 
gathered around her were Jean Molinet, her 
librarian and a poet who often celebrated her 
charms; Jean Lemaire de Beiges, who became 
her historian; Erasmus, Nicolas Everard, Ad- 
rian of Utrecht, Cornelius Agrippa, Masse, 
Renacle de Florennes, Louis Vives, and many 
others. Her library was as choice as her col- 
lection of paintings and included a Book of 
Hours and several other illuminated manu- 



342 The Spell of Flanders 

scripts now in the Bibliotlieque Eoyale at 
Brussels, and many of the mediaeval classics. 
History records few great personages whose 
personality, considered from every aspect, is 
more pleasing than that of this gracious lady, 
whose very pets are known to us through the 
frequent references made to them by her liter- 
ary courtiers. Her career, though shaded by 
sadness and disappointment, was a great and 
noble one, and, while she lived, the land over 
which she ruled remained in almost uninter- 
rupted peace and prosperity — the wars of the 
Emperor being for the most part waged far 
away on the plains of Italy or in France. 

On the last day of November, 1530, the Ee- 
g"ent Margaret passed away at her palace at 
Malines in the fiftieth year of her age and the 
twenty-third of her regency. For forty-five 
days the bells of the churches throughout the 
city tolled at morning, noon and night in ex- 
pression of the profound grief of the people at 
their great loss. The dirges may well have 
been for the departure of the city's greatness 
as well, for the death of its great patroness 
proved the beginning of its decline. The new 
Eegent, Marie of Hungary, removed her court 
to Brussels, and although Malines, by way of 
compensation, was made the seat of an arch- 



Malines and Margaret of Austria 343 

bishopric it never recovered its former splen- 
dour and sank rapidly into the quiet town that 
it was when the great war added a new and 
tragic chapter to its history. 




CHAPTER XVI 

GHENT UNDER CHARLES THE FIFTH AND SINCE 

UT for tlie great disaster at Nancy, it is 
altogether probable that Charles the 
Bold would, before very long, have 
sought to chastise the burghers of Ghent as he 
did those of Liege, but his unexpected death, 
and the ruin of his plans, gave the citizens at 
least a brief period of respite from the tyranny 
that had been pressing more and more heavily 
upon them since the '' bloody sea of Gavre." 
His daughter, Marie, was only nineteen when 
her father's fall placed her at the mercy of the 
turbulent communes, and at Ghent as well as 
Bruges she was forced to grant a charter re- 
storing the many privileges that Charles and 
Philip the Good had taken away. She was 
even helpless to save the lives of two of her 
most trusted counsellors, who were accused by 
the men of Ghent of treacherous correspond- 
ence with their wily enemy, Louis XI, and — 
in spite of her entreaties and tears in their be- 
half in the Marche de Vendredi — were pub- 

344 



Ghent Under Charles the Fifth 345 

licly beheaded in the first year of her brief 
reign. 

Shortly after the untimely death of this prin- 
cess whose popularity might have held the 
communes in check, her husband, Maximilian, 
began the long war that finally resulted in es- 
tablishing his authority over all of Flanders. 
This accomplished, he established his daughter, 
Margaret of Austria, as Regent and during the 
twenty-three years of her wise and gentle reign 
the country remained for the most part at 
peace and its commerce and prosperity re- 
turned. 

It was during the struggle with Maximilian 
that the Rabot was constructed at Ghent, in 
1489. The previous year the Emperor Fred- 
erick III, father of Maximilian, had threatened 
the city at this point, where its fortifications 
were weakest, and the two famous pointed tow- 
ers were built as part of the protective works 
designed to render a similar attack impossible. 
Although somewhat mutilated in 1860, the twin 
towers still stand, and with the curious inter- 
vening structure constitute one of the finest bits 
of military architecture of the fifteenth century 
that has come down to us. Historically, they 
form a monument of the victory gained by the 
commune over Frederick and his son in their 



346 The Spell of Flanders 

first attempt to curtail its liberties and privi- 
leges. 

On the 24th of Febraary of the year 1500 the 
city of Ghent learned that a baby boy had been 
born at the Cour de Princes, to its sovereigns, 
Philip the Handsome and Joanna of Spain, who 
was destined to become the most potverful mon- 
arch in the world. On the day when this fortu- 
nate baby was baptised with the name of 
Charles, the city gave itself up to rejoicings that 
might well have been tempered had it known the 
fate that was in store for it at the hands of its 
illustrious son forty years later. As it was, joy 
reigned, and at night ten thousand flaming 
torches flared, the great dragon in the belfry 
spouted Greek fire, and on a rope suspended 
from the top of the belfry to the spire of St. 
Nicholas a tight-rope dancer performed prodi- 
gies of skill for the cheering crowds that 
thronged the streets below. 

Fifteen years later, when Charles was de- 
clared of age, it was at Ghent that he was pro- 
claimed Count of Flanders. The following 
year he became King of Spain, and in 1520 
Emperor ; thus at the age of twenty ruling over 
all the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, North- 
em Italy, Spain and the vast empire in the new 
world — then in course of conquest by Pizzaro, 



I'liotograph by E. Saere. 

MAISON DE LA KEURE, HOTEL DE VILLE, GHENT. 



Ghent Under Charles the Fifth 347 

Cortes and the other Spanish conquistadores. 
While the city's most famous son was advanc- 
ing to the zenith of human power and wealth, 
its own fortunes were steadily declining. The 
long contest with Maximilian and the competi- 
tion of England had struck a death blow to the 
cloth industry, which languished for a time and 
then gradually decayed and disappeared. The 
Cloth Hall was therefore left unj&nished, which 
accounts for its insignificance as compared 
with similar structures in other Flemish towns 
where the textile trade was far less important 
than that of Ghent in the days of its greatest 
prosperity. The city continued, however, to 
be the centre of the grain trade as before, and 
the fine fagade of the Maison des Bateliers 
(House of the Boatmen's Guild), on the Quai 
au Ble, was built at this epoch, in 1534. 

A still more notable structure, the Hotel de 
Ville, dates in part from the time of Charles. 
This edifice in reality comprises a group of 
buildings erected at different epochs and for 
diverse purposes. Architecturally the most 
beautiful of these is the Maison de la Keure, 
which forms the corner of the Marche au 
Beurre and the rue Haut Port, extending 
for most of its length on the latter somewhat 
narrow street. This was designed and built 



348 The Spell of Flanders 

by Dominique de Wagiienakere of Antwerp 
and the famous Eombaut Keldermans of Ma- 
lines, and was erected between 1518 and 1534. 
The actual edifice represents only a quarter of 
the fine design of the architects and lacks an 
entire story with various decorative features 
which would have greatly improved its appear- 
ance and made it one of the finest Hotels de 
Ville in Flanders. As it is, this part is by far 
the best of the entire structure. The Maison 
des Parchons facing the Marche au Beurre was 
built in 1600 to 1620 and is in the Italian Re- 
naissance style and vastly inferior to the fine 
Gothic structure of a century earlier. The 
other portion of the building comprises a Hall 
for the States of Flanders, in the ruelle de 
Hotel de Ville, built in the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries; the grande conciergerie 
joining this to the earlier Gothic Maison de la 
. Keure and built in 1700; and a Chambre des 
Pauvres built by order of Charles V in 1531, 
of which the present fagade dates from 1750. 

The inner rooms of this collection of build- 
ings, of different ages and different architec- 
tural styles, are of relatively minor interest. 
The Grande Salle de Justice de la Keure is 
somewhat imposing with its large fireplace, but 
its lack of other decorations makes it rather 



Ghent Under Charles the Fifth 349 

cold and gloomy and we were glad to leave it. 
Much more beautiful is the Salle de 1 'Arsenal, 
built half a century later. In the Cbapel of 
St. John the Baptist, which adjoins the Salle 
de Justice in the most ancient part of the edi- 
fice, and is now used as a Salle des Mariages, 
is a fine picture representing Marie of Bur- 
gundy begging her people to forgive Hugonet 
and Humbercourt, her two ministers who — 
despite her tearful pleas — were executed in the 
Place Ste. Pharailde hard by. 

On the death of Margaret of Austria the 
Emperor appointed his sister, Marie of Hun- 
gary, Eegent of the Netherlands. The steady 
decline of its trade and the increasing poverty 
of the people caused the city of Ghent to seethe 
with discontent, and in 1539 an outbreak oc- 
curred that gave the Regent great alarm. Un- 
der the leadership of a group of demagogues 
the Metiers or lower associations of arti- 
sans, overawed the magistrates and seized Lie- 
vin Pyn, an aged and honourable member of 
the Council and Dean of the Metiers who 
was unjustly accused of giving the Queen Ee- 
gent a false report on the situation and of hav- 
ing stolen the great banner of the city. This 
unfortunate old man was subjected to fearful 
tortures in the Chateau des Comtes, but reso- 



350 The Spell of Flanders 

lutely refused to confess to any of the acts 
charged against him. Nevertheless, he was 
finally executed on the Place Ste. Pharailde — 
one of the most pitiful and unjust of the many 
cruel tragedies enacted there. Broken and 
weakened from the tortures to which he had 
been subjected, he had to be carried to the 
place of execution, where his indomitable spirit 
was such that before bowing before the axe of 
the executioner he sternly reproached his 
judges with their cowardice, and predicted that 
the people would soon have occasion to regret 
the fatuous course they were pursuing. 

The dying old man spoke the truth. The 
Emperor was then in Spain and matters con- 
nected with the government of his world- 
encircling realm demanded for the moment 
his attention, but he was none the less kept 
well informed as to what was going on in 
his native city, where atfairs meanwhile pro- 
gressed from bad to worse, until a veritable 
state of anarchy prevailed. When Charles 
learned of the virtual insurrection against his 
authority that prevailed, and of the death of 
Lievin Pyn, he was furious and vowed to inflict 
upon the rebellious city a vengeance that would 
deter all other cities in the empire from ever 
following its example. Slowly, but with a de- 



G-hent Under Charles the Fifth 351 

liberateness that boded ill for the foolhardy 
rabble who for the moment guided the destinies 
of the commune, the Emperor made his prep- 
arations for a trip to the Low Countries. Two 
months after the execution of Pyn it became 
known in the city that their puissant sovereign 
was on his way. The news filled the mutineers 
with terror. No longer was Ghent in the 
proud position she had occupied under the 
Counts of Flanders and the first Dukes of Bur- 
gundy — the premier city of the realm and a 
foe to be respected and even feared. The 
power of Charles V was too vast for even the 
most ignorant to think of armed resistance to 
his authority, now that he was about to assert 
it in person. Many of those responsible for 
the period of anarchy fled, others went into 
hiding. 

Early in the year 1540 the Emperor arrived 
at Cambrai, proceeding next to Valenciennes 
and Brussels. Meanwhile a strong force of 
German soldiers entered the city — meeting 
with no resistance from its now thoroughly 
terrified inhabitants, many of whom no doubt 
wished they could restore the dead Doyen des 
Metiers, whom they had so cruelly sacrificed, to 
life again that he might plead their cause with 
the dreaded Emperor. They had good reason 



352 The Spell of Flanders 

to tremble, for in a few days the ring-leaders 
of the late troubles began to be arrested and all 
men were forbidden, under penalty of death, to 
harbour them or aid them to escape their sov- 
ereign's wrath. A few days later nine of the 
mutineers were executed on the Place Ste. 
Pharailde where Lievin Pyn had perished at 
their hands six months before. The magis- 
trates were now filled with terror and abjectly 
pleaded for mercy. The Emperor haughtily 
replied that he knew how to be merciful and 
also how to do justice, and that he would pres- 
ently give judgment on the city *' in such a 
manner that it would never be forgotten and 
others would take therefrom an example." 

This disquieting response was followed by 
the Emperor's famous visit to the top of the 
cathedral tower in company with the Duke of 
Alva. It was on this occasion that the latter, 
with the ferocity that afterwards made his 
name a by-word for cruelty for future ages, 
counselled his sovereign to utterly destroy the 
rebellious city. To this the Emperor responded 
with the hon mot that showed at once his sense 
of humour and his moderation. Pointing to 
the wide-spreading red roofs of the populous 
city he asked, " How many Spanish skins do 
you think it would take to make a glove (Gand, 




PORTRAIT OF THE DUKE OF ALVA BY A. MORO. 



Ghent Under Charles the Fifth 353 

the French spelling of Ghent, also means 
glove) as large as this? " 

Meanwhile, under the direct supervision of 
the Emperor, a huge citadel began to be erected 
on the site of the ancient little town surround- 
ing the Abbey of St. Bavon — a choice that in- 
volved the destruction of many of the Abbey 
buildings. The Emperor, while this work was 
going on, remained at the Prineenhof where he 
held his court, but gave no sign as to what the 
fate of the city was to be. It was not until 
April 29th, 1540, that he finally — in the pres- 
ence of a great throng of princes, nobles and 
the members of his Grand Council, with the city 
magistrates on their knees at his feet — gave 
his long delayed decision. In a loud voice the 
Imperial herald first read a list of thirty-five 
crimes committed by the people of the city, de- 
claring them guilty of deslealte, desoheys- 
sance, infraction de tr aides, sedition, rebellion 
et de leze-mageste. In consequence of these, 
crimes the sentence deprived them forever of 
their privileges, rights, and franchises. It di- 
rected that the charters, together with the red 
and black books in which they were registered, 
should be turned over to the Emperor to do 
with them as he pleased, and it was forbidden 
evej again to invoke or appeal to them. It pro- 



354 The Spell of Flanders 

nounced the confiscation of all the goods, rents, 
revenues, houses, artillery and war material be- 
longing to the city or to the Metiers. It 
confiscated the great bell Roland and decreed 
that it must be taken down. It further directed 
that three days later the magistrates, thirty 
members of the bourgeois or middle class, the 
Doyen of the weavers, six men from each Me- 
tier and fifty '' creesers " should beg pardon 
of the Emperor and Queen. The suppliants on 
this occasion were dressed in black, with heads 
and feet bare, and cords about their necks, and 
were compelled to beg the pardon of the Em- 
peror on their knees in the market-place. Be- 
sides this public degradation the magistrates 
were required to wear the cords about their necks 
thereafter during the exercise of their functions. 
It is said, however, that before very long the 
hemp was converted into a rich cord of gold and 
silk, which they wore as a scarf — as if it were a 
badge of honour instead of one of disgrace. 

The walls of the city were to be still further 
demolished, and the sovereign reserved the 
right to specify later which towers, gates and 
walls should be torn down to erect the citadel. 
Finally, a heavy money indemnity was exacted, 
and the following day a new code of laws in 
sixty-five articles was promulgated — the fa- 



Ghent Under Charles the Fifth 355 

mous Concession Caroline — whicli served as 
the basis of government until the end of the old 
regime during the French Revolution. The 
city, no doubt, breathed a sigh of rehef that the 
Emperor exacted no further toll of human life, 
but the conditions were none the less heavy 
enough. In brief, these terms ended, once and 
for all, every vestige of self-government, and 
swept away all of the privileges for which the 
burghers had fought for so many centuries. 
The year 1540 marks the end, therefore, of the 
long and brilliant history of the Flemish com- 
munes — for no other city dared resist the Em- 
peror 's authority after this — and thereafter 
Flanders became a mere province in the wide 
dominions of sovereigns who seldom visited its 
cities and frequently did not even speak the 
language of its people. 

Among the tombstones in the Cathedral of 
St. Bavon one that deserves more than a pass- 
ing glance is that of Bishop Triest. Designed 
by the celebrated sculptor, Jerome Duquesnoy, 
it is a notable example of Flemish sculpture, 
besides possessing an added interest by reason 
of the fact that the artist sought to destroy 
it when complete. More important, however, 
than the monument and its story is the fact 
that Bishop Triest was the father of the art of 



356 The Spell of Flanders 

horticulture for which Ghent is so renowned to- 
day. It was in his gardens — which were fa- 
mous throughout the seventeenth century — 
that rare and exotic plants were for the first 
time planted out of doors in Flanders and 
trained to grow in the form of pyramids, 
arches, summer-houses, and a hundred fantastic 
shapes. The " Belvedere Gardens " of the 
worthy prelate became the model for other gar- 
deners, and the seed, planted in fertile soil, 
from which sprang a great industry. 

Not content with cultivating his own gardens 
the Bishop sought to encourage in every way 
the humble gardeners of the city, giving them 
his august protection, his friendly counsel, 
making loans to the needy, and uniting them 
into a society under the patronage of St. 
Amand and Ste. Dorothy. This noble example 
was speedily followed by the city, which also 
encouraged the horticulturists. In 1640 Wil- 
liam de Blasere, an alderman of the city, con- 
structed the first hothouse ever seen in Europe. 
It was a hundred feet long, made of wood and 
glass, heated with huge stoves, and sufficiently 
high to accommodate the exotic plants that, in 
summertime, were set outdoors. This novelty 
made a great stir and brought many visitors to 
Ghent. Soon afterward a society of horticul- 



Ghent Under Charles the Fifth 357 

turists was founded, and by the end of the cen- 
tury a botanical garden was established. 

In the opening years of the nineteenth cen- 
tury this institution very nearly came to an end. 
It was costly to keep up, produced little or no 
revenue, and Napoleon, who was then First 
Consul and included Ghent in his rapidly wid- 
ening dominions, decided that it should be sup- 
pressed. A friend of the garden skilfully took 
advantage of a visit of Josephine to Ghent to 
enlist her aid in persuading her husband to 
spare it. Inviting the future empress to visit the 
establishment, he contrived that the plants and 
flowers should plead their own cause. Between 
two palms at the entrance he had a huge plac- 
ard suspended bearing the words: " Ave, Cce- 
sar, morituri te salutamus.' ' Then, along the 
different walks, each flower and plant bore a 
card proportionate to its size and containing a 
verse alluding to its approaching destruction. 
Naturally surprised at this outburst of po- 
etry on the part of the ' ' nymphs ' ' of the gar- 
den, as the flowers styled themselves in their 
effusions, Josephine inquired the reason for it. 
This gave her conductor his opportunity, and 
he pleaded for the preservation of the garden 
with such ardour and eloquence that he won 
her assurance that if her wishes had any weight 



358 The Spell of Flanders 

Ms beautiful garden sliould be preserved and 
its ' ' nymphs ' ' should not perish in exile. The 
event proved that he had secured a powerful 
ally, for the edict of the First Consul was re- 
scinded and the garden was saved. 

To-day Ghent boasts of her title of * ' the City 
of Flowers." The Botanical Garden is pro- 
tected by a Royal Society, there are many pri- 
vate collections that are worth going far to see, 
and more than five hundred establishments, 
large and small, are engaged in horticulture as 
an industry, the annual exports amounting to 
millions of dollars. Bishop Triest can there- 
fore be thanked for giving Flanders one of its 
great industries. 

Speaking of Napoleon, it is not generally re- 
membered that Ghent was, for the brief space 
of one hundred days, the capital of France. 
When Napoleon returned from Elba, and was 
received with open arms by the very troops sent 
to attack him, Louis XVIII fled incontinently 
to Ghent where he set up a feeble court at his 
residence on the rue des Champs. Here Gui- 
zot, Chateaubriand, and his other ministers met 
formally every morning to discuss with His 
Majesty the chances of his ever getting back to 
Paris again — Paris where, by the way, the 
mob was singing mockingly : 



Ghent Under Charles the Fifth 359 

" Rendez nous notre pere de Gand 
Rendez nous notre pere ! " 

It would take a satirist like Dickens or Thack- 
eray to describe the scene when the fat mon- 
arch sat down to his mid-day meal, in the pres- 
ence of whoever might wish to watch the curi- 
ous spectacle. He conquered enormous quanti- 
ties of food, but depended on "Wellington and 
Bliicher to conquer the army of Napoleon. 
The forms of sovereignty were none the less 
carefully observed, as the little court waited 
day by day for the great event that all men 
could see was drawing steadily nearer. At last, 
as the thunder of Napoleon's guns startled the 
allies from their dance at Brussels, and the 
tramp of his advancing squadrons shook the 
fields of Waterloo, this fat little fly on the char- 
iot wheel of European politics prepared once 
more for flight. Coaches were made ready to 
carry the entire court to Ostende, where an 
English vessel awaited them if the battle went 
against the allies. All day long the horses 
stood in the courtyard, the drivers whip in 
hand. History does not record what gastro- 
nomic feats His Majesty performed that day, 
but late at night the tidings came that the 
Grande Armee was in retreat, and that King 
Louis could return to his kingdom. 



360 The Spell of Flanders 

Ghent shares with Bruges the glory of being 
the birthplace of Flemish painting. The fa- 
mous '* Adoration of the Lamb," by the broth- 
ers Van Eyck, was ordered by a wealthy bur- 
gher of Ghent for the cathedral of St. Bavon — 
where the greater part of the original work still 
rests. It was at Ghent that Hubert, the elder 
brother, planned the masteri^iece and completed 
his share of it. But Ghent also had masters be- 
longing to the early Flemish school whose fame 
she does not have to share with any other city. 
One of these was Josse or Justus, usually called 
Justus of Ghent, who visited Italy in 1468 and 
there painted several pictures. Another was 
Hugo Van der Goes who gave promise of be- 
coming as great a master as Jean Van Eyck 
when he suddenly gave up his chosen profession 
and entered the Monastery of Rouge-Cloitre, 
near Bruges. He was admitted to the Guild of 
Painters at Ghent in 1467, and left the world of 
action in 1476 — eventually becoming insane and 
dying six years later. There is a story to the 
effect that he once painted a picture of Abigail 
meeting David for a burgher of Ghent who 
lived in a house near the bridge called the Muy- 
derbrugge, and while engaged on this work — 
which was painted on the wall above a fireplace 
— fell in love with his patron 's daughter. The 



Ghent Under Charles the Fifth 361 

painting proved a great success, but the stern 
parents frowned on the suit of the young artist, 
and the daughter, in despair, entered the con- 
vent of the White Ladies known as the Porta 
Coeli, near Brussels. The house, which was 
said to have been entirely surrounded by water, 
has long since disappeared, together with the 
]Dainting, but the story may be the explanation 
for the abandonment by the artist of a promis- 
ing career when he was still in the prime of life. 
One of the finest pictures in the Modern Gal- 
lery at Brussels is that by E. Wauters repre- 
senting the madness of Van der Goes. The 
painter is shown seated and staring eagerly at 
some phantasm before him — perhaps a vision 
of the fair Abigail — while a group of little 
choir boys are striving, under the leadership of 
a monk, to exorcise the evil demon that pos- 
sesses their famous brother by means of sacred 
songs and chants. It is said that this method 
of cure was indeed attempted while he was at 
Eouge-Cloitre, but without success. 

The best work of both of these artists is, un- 
fortunately, far from Flanders — being found 
in Italy, where Flemish painters were in their 
day very highly regarded. " The Last Sup- 
per," which was the greatest masterpiece of 
Justus, was painted as an altarpiece for the 



362 The Spell of Flanders 

brotherhood of Corpus Christi at Urbino and 
still hangs in the church of Sant' Agatha in that 
Italian town. '' The Adoration of the Shep- 
herds," which was the greatest work of Van der 
Goes, is in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence. At 
Bruges there are two paintings attributed to 
this master, ' ' The Death of the Virgin, ' ' in the 
museum, and the panel representing the donors 
in ' ' The Martyrdom of St. Hippolytus ' ' in the 
church of St. Sauveur. The greater part of the 
paintings by Van der Goes in Belgium were de- 
stroyed by the iconoclasts in the sixteenth cen- 
tury, including several of which his contem- 
poraries and other early writers spoke in the 
highest terms. Frequent mention is made of 
his skill as a portrait painter, and Prof. A. J. 
Wauters, after a careful study of his known 
works throughout Europe, ascribes to him the 
famous portrait of Charles the Bold in the mu- 
seum at Brussels. The early writers state that 
private houses at Bruges and Ghent, as well as 
churches, were filled with his works. Let us 
hope that some of these — hidden away during 
the religious wars or at the time of the icono- 
clasts — may yet be discovered and identified. 

Ghent, during the fifteenth century, was the 
artistic centre of Flanders, and the names, but 
not the works, of many of its painters have 






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Ghent Under Charles the Fifth 363 

come down to us. One of the most celebrated 
of these in contemporary annals was G-erard 
Van der Meire, to whom tradition has assigned 
the triptych of '' The Crucifixion " in the ca- 
thedral of St. Bavon. This artist rose to high 
rank in the Guild of St. Luke, to which he was 
admitted in 1452, and a considerable number 
of paintings in various European galleries are 
attributed to him. An Italian writer ascribes 
to him one hundred and twenty-five of the es?- 
quisite miniatures in the famous Grimani Bre- 
viary, now in the library of St. Mark's at Ven- 
ice. If this were true. Van der Meire was in- 
deed a great artist, but this book was illustrated 
after his death. 

According to the Eoyal Commission of Art 
and Archeology of Belgium, Ghent contains 
more noteworthy antiquities than any other 
town in the Kingdom. The Commission, it ap- 
pears, divides the " antiquities " into three 
classes, according to their relative importance, 
and credits Ghent with thirteen of the first 
class, ten of the second and six of the third — 
or twenty-nine in all. The figures for the other 
Flemish cities are: Antwerp, seven first, five 
second, six third, total eighteen; Bruges, four 
first, six second, six third, total sixteen; Tour- 
nai, three first, six second, six third, total fijf- 



364 The Spell of Flanders 

teen; Malines, four first, eight second, two 
third, total fourteen. Many places are credited 
with two or three each. We tried to get a copy 
of the Eeport of the Commission giving the 
names of the antiquities in each class, and the- 
reasons for ranking them, but were unable to 
do so during our stay in Belgium. It would 
have been a learned check on the list of places 
we had found most interesting. Quite likely we 
would have found that the Commission gave the 
first rank to some * ' antiquity ' ' we did not see 
at all, and maybe never heard of! However, 
we saw enough to occupy every minute of our 
brief vacation, and the majority of those we 
missed — wilfully at least — were churches, of 
which Flanders has enough to fill three books 
like this were one to faithfully report them all. 
In Ghent there are, as at Bruges, many inter- 
esting private houses scattered throughout the 
city. The Professor and I on our morning 
walks looked up many of these, but the list 
would be tedious to enumerate. One of the 
most famous is the '' Arriere-Faucille," for- 
merly the home of a rich seigneur, but since 
1901 used as a Eoyal Conservatory of Music. 
Its castle-like tower is very picturesque, but we 
saw nothing of interest in the interior. Near 
by are two very old houses with typically Flem- 



Ghent Under Charles the Fifth 365 

ish. gables, called the Zwarte Moor and tlie 
Groot Moor. Built in 1481, or thereabouts^ the 
Confrerie of St. George had its headquarters 
here for many years. 

The guilds have already been mentioned, and 
the fagades of all of the more famous of the 
guild houses have been carefully restored. 
These include the Maison des Mesureurs de Ble 
and the Maison des Francs Bateliers on the 
Quai aux Herbes, the Maison des Magons and 
the Maison des Bateliers non francs. The an- 
cient Grand Boucherie, recently restored, is an- 
other interesting ' ' monument. ' ' It seems that 
the Butchers ' Guild at Ghent owed its prosper- 
ity to the fact that Charles V chanced one day 
to fall in love with the pretty daughter of a 
Ghent butcher. This young lady obtained for 
her son and his descendants an imperial mo- 
nopoly of the slaughtering and meat-selling 
business which survived all the various dynas- 
tic changes till the French Eevolution. The 
butchers were called Prinse Kinderen, or 
Prince's Children, and seem to have made a 
very good thing out of the blot on their family 
escutcheon. Another old edifice is the Maison 
de I'Etape, or Staple House, a granary dating 
from the thirteenth century, which stands beside 
the guild houses on the Quai aux Herbes. In 



^66 The Spell of Flanders 

short, the tourist can easily find enough of in- 
terest in this rare old Flemish city to occupy 
many days of leisurely sight-seeing. Ghent, 
like Bruges, has thus far been spared the de- 
struction that has overtaken so many of the 
smaller Flemish towns during the war and, as 
far as is at present known, all of its twenty- 
nine monuments are still intact. 



CHAPTER XVII 

AUDENAEEDE AND MARGARET OF PARMA 

fT was on a pleasant morning in June tliat 
the Professor and I set forth on a little 
expedition to the famous town of the tap- 
estry weavers, leaving the ladies to rest and 
shop at Brussels. The poplar-trees that line 
the country roads and canals in all parts of 
Belgium were in full bloom and their light 
cotton-clad seeds were drifting like snow in 
every direction. Moreover, contrary to our 
experience for some time past, the sun seemed 
likely to shine all day and our old friend J. 
Pluvius was in complete retreat. Our route 
lay for a considerable distance through a 
charming hop country, the plots being much 
smaller than one sees in Kent or in Central 
New York State, but very numerous, and, no 
doubt, aggregating a considerable acreage. 
Farther along we passed through a superb 
stretch of hilly country where many of the 
houses and barns had thatched roofs and were 
so picturesque, both in themselves and in their 

367 



368 The Spell of Flanders 



surroundings, that we would fain have de- 
scended at one of the little stations and spent 
the day exploring and photographing this 
charming corner of Flanders. The most beau- 
tiful spot of all bore the pretty name of Louise- 
Marie — the thatch- roofed houses nestling co- 
sily together upon a hillside. This little sta- 
tion, by the way, is on the line from Blaton to 
Audenaerde (in Flemish Oudenaarde), as we 
were approaching our destination from the 
south instead of directly from Brussels. Pres- 
ently the great tower of Ste. Walburge loomed 
up ahead on our right, and we could even catch 
a glimpse of the famous Hotel de Ville. In- 
stead of stopping, however, our train went on 
past the church, past the town, past everything, 
until we began to fear that our faithful ' ' omni- 
bus " had suddenly gone crazy and fancied it- 
self a '^ rapide " bound for goodness knows 
where. At last, however, the station came in 
sight, but we even sped past that, coming to rest 
finally some distance down the railroad yard. 
As we walked back toward the " Sortie-Aus- 
gang " gateway we debated whether we would 
drive back to the town in a cab or take a tram. 
Emerging on the street we promptly decided to 
walk, since neither cab nor tram-car could be 
seen. 



Audenaerde and Margaret of Parma 369 

There was no danger of losing our way, for 
there, straight down the long street before us, 
we could see the huge mass of Ste. Walburge 
towering far above the little houses around it. 
After a leisurely walk of five or six minutes we 
arrived at a large bleak-looking square, called 
the Place de Tacambaro, at the centre of which 
stood a monument that — had we been in a car- 
riage or on a tram-car — we would have passed 
without more than a passing glance. As it was, 
we paused to read the inscriptions and found 
that, for Americans, they told a story of no lit- 
tle interest. It appears that this is a memorial 
erected in honour of the volunteers from Au- 
denaerde who died in Mexico in the service of 
the unfortunate Emperor Maximilian. The 
south side of the monument, which represents 
a reclining female figure by the sculptor, W. 
Geef s, bears the following inscription : 

" Ordre de Jour 

Offieiers et Soldats ! Vous avez pris votre part des travaux 

et des luttes dans la gvierre du Mexique, votre 

valeur dans les combats, votre discipline 

dans les fatigues des longnes 

marches ont honore le 

nom Beige. 

Au moment de vous rembarquer pour aller revoir votre 

patrie recevez les adieux de vos freres d'armes du 

corps expeditionaire frangais. 



370 The Spell of Flanders 

Dans quelques semaines vous aurez revu les rivages de votre 

patrie y conservez, je I'espere, bon souvenir de leux 

qui ont soufert et combattu a vos cotes, 

ainsi que du Marechal de Fi'ance 

qui a eu I'honneur de 

vous commander. 

Le Marechal de France, Commandant en Chef. 

BAZAINE." 

Proceeding along the street, which still led 
straight toward the great church, we discussed 
the strange fate that had led these valiant 
Flemings to give their lives in a war of con- 
quest so many thousands of miles away — a fu- 
tile sacrifice as the event proved, with this little 
monument as their sole reward. 

Almost before we were aware of it we found 
ourselves at the Grande Place with the Hotel 
de Ville right in front of us. We were on the 
west side of the little structure, which on the 
rue Haute adjoins the ancient Halle aux Draps. 
An old doorway gives on the rue Haute, but is 
no longer used, the entrance being now through 
the Hotel de Ville. 

While the two principal churches of the town 
have suffered severely from the fanatical rav- 
ages of the iconoclasts, or image breakers, the 
Hotel de Ville can be seen in almost its pristine 
magnificence. Architecturally this monument 
is generally considered as one of the finest, not 




Photogrhpli by K. Saeru. 

HOTEL DE VILLE, AUDENAERDE. 



Audenaerde and Margaret of Parma 371 

only in Flanders, but in the whole of Europe. 
Little it undeniably is, although it towers up 
bravely above the low two-story buildings sur- 
rounding it, but its very smallness gives its 
marvellous fagade the richness and delicacy of 
the finest lace. Begun in 1525, it was com- 
pleted twelve years later at a cost of " 65,754 
livres parisis, 16 sols, 2 deniers." Those who 
are curious can ascertain the modern equivalent 
of the " Paris pound " of 1537, but even when 
we add the 16 sols, 2 deniers, it seems as though 
the burghers, got very good value for their 
money. 

Late Gothic is the period to which this gem 
in the galaxy of splendid Flemish town halls 
belongs. It is considered the masterpiece of 
its architect, Henri Van Pede, who also de- 
signed the superb Hotel de Ville at Brussels 
and that at Louvain. The many little niches 
on the front once contained statues of the noble 
lords and dames of Flanders, including no 
doubt several of the great house of Lalaing, 
the Count Philippe de Lalaing having laid the 
corner stone. Unfortunately these were all de- 
stroyed during the religious wars and the 
French Eevolution and have never been re- 
placed. This seems a great pity, as Flanders 
still possesses many stone-carvers of great skill. 



372 The Spell of Flanders 

and the kindly hand of time would soon mellow 
the new work to harmonise with the old. As it 
is, every niche contains the iron projection that 
formerly held its statue in place, so that the 
work of restoration would consist of simply 
carving each of the little statues in the sculp- 
tor's own atelier, wherever it might be, and 
afterwards placing them in position. 

One of the original statues still remains in 
place, however, and is entitled to the honour 
of being styled the oldest citizen of Audenaerde. 
This is none other than Hanske 't Krijgerke, 
Petit Jean le Guerrier, or Little John the War- 
rior, who, with his diminutive standard bearing 
the arms of the city, stands on the topmost pin- 
nacle of the tower. His gaze is ever toward the 
South, with a far-away look in his eyes, across 
the Grande Place and toward the distant hills. 
During the three hundred and seventy-eight 
years that he has been standing there, braving 
the winter rains and the summer sunshine, how 
many changes have taken place in the great out- 
side world while little Audenaerde has stood 
still! 

Even without its statues the principal facade 
of the Hotel de Ville merits more than a pass- 
ing glance. In the admirable harmony of its 
proportions, the delicate beauty of its details. 



Audenaerde and Margaret of Parma 373 

in the excellence of the stone carvings — al- 
most perfectly preserved — that form wreaths 
and festoons of stone about its Gothic windows, 
there is nothing finer to be seen in all Flanders. 
The high pointed roof, with its tiny dormer 
windows, is exactly as the architect intended 
it, and the charming little tower seems as per- 
fect as the day the last of the sixteenth-century 
masons left it. 

The interior is worthy of the exterior. On 
the first floor a large hall, called the Salle du 
Peuple — Hall of the People — extends from 
one side of the building to the other. This 
contains a fine stone fireplace surmounted by a 
splendidly carved Gothic mantelpiece with 
statues of Ste. Walburge in the centre and Jus- 
tice and Power on either side. Below are the 
arms of Austria, Flanders, and of Audenaerde. 
This masteriDiece was carved by Paul Van der 
Schelden. The walls on each side of the fire- 
place are decorated with modern mural paint- 
ings depicting Liederick de Buck, the first 
Forester of Flanders, Dierick of Alsace, Bald- 
win of Constantinople, and Charles the Fifth. 
Between the windows overlooking the Grande 
Place are the Arms of Castile and Aragon, 
while at the ends of each of the great beams 
that support the ceiling are carved the arms of 



374 The Spell of Flanders 

the various kingdoms and principalities belong- 
ing to Charles V. 

Already we perceive that the shadow of the 
great Emperor rests heavily on this little city 
of Audenaerde, and as we proceed further in 
our explorations the more dominating and om- 
nipresent does his personality become. Even 
the very arms of the city bear a mute evidence 
to his generosity and sense of humour. It is 
related that on a certain occasion the Emperor 
and his stately train approached the city with- 
out being perceived by the sentinel stationed 
in the tower of this very Hotel de Ville to an- 
nounce his arrival. On reaching the gates, 
therefore, the Imperial cortege found no one 
to welcome the great monarch. The Burgo- 
master and the members of the Council, who 
should have been there in their robes of state, 
were conspicuous by their absence. Had this 
happened to his ancestor Charles the Bold, 
whose fiery temper brooked no discourtesy, 
even when unintended, it might well have gone 
hard with the unfortunate officials. As it was, 
the Emperor overlooked the slight, but not long 
afterwards he maliciously inserted a pair of 
spectacles in the arms of the city, remarking 
that in future they would thus be able to see 
more clearly the approach of their sovereign. 




WOODEN DOORWAY, CARVED BY VAN DER SCHELDEN, HOTEL 
DE VILLE, AUDENAERDE. 



Audenaerde and Margaret of Parma 375 

Adjoining the Salle du Peuple is a smaller 
chamber, the Salle des Echevins, or the Council 
Chamber of the ancient commune. Here there 
is another stone fireplace slightly inferior to 
the one in the larger hall, but resembling it in 
general design. The statues here represent 
the Virgin Mary in the centre, with Justice and 
Hope on either side. The chief masterpiece in 
this room, however, is the wooden doorway 
carved by Van der Schelden, who was instructed 
by the burghers to make it as beautiful as pos- 
sible. How faithfully the artist performed his 
task the result shows. Around its top stand 
wooden cupids surmounting a richly carved 
entablature containiilg the arms of Charles V 
in the centre with those of Flanders and of 
Audenaerde on either side. The first is sup- 
ported by two griffins, the second by two lions 
and the last by two savages. The panels of the 
door itself and of the sidewalls forming the 
complete portal are richly carved, each design 
being different from all the others. For this 
bit of wood-carving the frugal burghers paid 
the sum of one thousand, eighteen livres parisis, 
or nine hundred and twenty-three francs — 
something over $175 — and the artist furnished 
the wood! 

Formerly the walls of this room were deco- 



376 The Spell of Flanders 

rated with tapestries of Audenaerde, but at the 
time of Louis XIV these were all removed and 
taken to Paris. Most of the tapestries in the 
town overlooked by le Grande Monarque were 
subsequently taken away by Napoleon, so that 
the Hotel de Ville of the city that gave these 
treasures to the world, and that should possess 
the finest collection of them, has been stripped 
completely bare. In their stead the Council 
Chamber at present contains a collection of 
paintings of no special artistic- merit but of 
great historical interest. There is, of course, 
a portrait of Charles V, wearing the insignia 
of the Order of the Golden Fleece. A portrait 
of Louis XIV on horseback and bearing a mar- 
shal's baton, by Philippe de Champaigne, 
forms a poor substitute for the tapestries 
filched by His Majesty. This collection also 
comprises several portraits of personages fa- 
mous in later Flemish history. Of these the 
most noteworthy is that of Margaret of Parma, 
which hangs close to that of her father, the 
Empe!ror. 

Just across the Grande Place from the Hotel 
de Ville stands the Tower of Baldwin, undoubt- 
edly the oldest structure in the city, and erected 
by Baldwin V, a Count of Flanders who died 
in 1067, making it date from the Norman Con- 



Audenaerde and Margaret of Parma 377 

quest. The concierge of the Hotel de Ville in- 
formed us that this little tower, which adjoins 
another ancient edifice now used as a brewery, 
was the birthplace of Margaret, but this does 
not appear to be altogether certain. Some au- 
thorities state that the honour belongs to a 
little two-story house with a high, steep-sloping 
roof that also faces the Place. If the walls of 
these old houses had the ears that proverbially 
belong to all walls, and were still further pro- 
vided with lips to whisper the secrets they over- 
heard, they could no doubt settle this question; 
and at the same time throw some additional 
light upon a famous bit of mediaeval romance 
and scandal. 

Of all the natives of the ancient town of 
Audenaerde the most famous was Margaret, 
afterwards the Duchess of Parma, and for many 
years Eegent of the Low Countries, over which 
she ruled with an almost imperial sway. Her 
father was the great Emperor, Charles V, who 
dallied here for several weeks as guest of the 
Countess de Lalaing, wife of the Governor of 
Audenaerde, while his soldiers were besieging 
Toumai in the year 1521. The attraction that 
kept him so far from his army was a pretty 
Flemish maiden named Jehanne or Jeanne Van 
der Gheynst. According to the none too trust- 



378 The Spell of Flanders 

worthy Strada, this young lady was a member 
of the Flemish nobility, but according to the 
city archives it appears that she belonged to 
a family of humble tapestry workers residing 
at Nukerke, a suburb of Audenaerde. At all 
events, her pretty face attracted the attention 
of the youthful Emperor — whether at a ball, 
as Strada says, or while she was serving as 
maid of the Countess de Lalaing, as many 
writers assume, or perhaps at a village 
Kermesse which Charles, might well have at- 
tended incognito. After the little Margaret 
was born the mother received an annual income 
of twenty-four livres parisis from the Emperor. 
In 1525 she married the Maitre de Chambre ex- 
traordinaire of the Counts of Brabant, and died 
in 1541. Charles took his little daughter and 
had her brought up as a princess. In 1537, 
when she was only fifteen years old, she was 
married by the Emperor to Alexander, the 
Duke of Urbin, a cruel and dissolute Italian 
prince who, however, died the same year. The 
following year she was married to Octavio 
Famese, a grandson of Pope Pius HI, who 
was then only fourteen. She was herself 
strongly opposed to this marriage, but the 
Emperor was obdurate and she finally yielded. 
Her son, Alexander Farnese, was the famous 



Audenaerde and Margaret of Parma 379 

Duke of Parma who became the foremost mili- 
tary leader on the Spanish side during the 
sanguinary war between Philip II and the 
Netherlands. On the death of her father, Mar- 
garet was made Eegent of the Low Countries 
by her half-brother Philip II, She arrived at 
Ghent, July 25th, 1559, and on August 7th the 
King presented her to the States General, say- 
ing that he had chosen her as his representative 
because she was so close to him by birth and 
*' because of the singular affection she has al- 
ways borne toward the Low Countries where 
she was bom and raised and of which she knew 
all the languages."' She retired from the Ee- 
gency in 1567, but was called back once more 
in 1580 at the personal request of the King. 
As her son Alexander was then at the zenith of 
his power, and opposed to her resuming the 
regency, she finally declined the honour which 
was reluctantly given to him. She died in 1586 
at the age of sixty-six. 

It was her fortune, or rather misfortune, to 
rule over the Netherlands at a period when the 
seething forces of religious unrest and protest 
were becoming too violent to be restrained. 
Had Philip II, her half-brother, been less big- 
oted, less cruel, and less blind to the best in- 
terests of the country and of his own dynasty, 



380 The Spell of Flanders 

it is possible that the great popularity of the 
Duchess — who was- sincerely loved by the ma- 
jority of her subjects and respected by all — 
might have enabled the Government to restrain 
the rising passions of the people. If, instead 
of a policy of savage repression, the King of 
Spain had authorised Margaret to pursue a 
policy of moderation and conciliation, the fear- 
ful history of the next eighty years — the 
blackest page in human history — might never 
have been written. Unfortunately, modera- 
tion and conciliation were as foreign to the na- 
ture of that sombre monarch as to Torquemada 
himself, and fanaticism fought fanaticism with 
a fury that was as devoid of intelligence as it 
was of mercy. 

The first act in the drama of blood was the 
sudden outbreak of the frenzy of the icono- 
clasts, or image-breakers, which swept over the 
greater part of the Spanish Netherlands in the 
month of August, 1566. Scarcely a church, a 
chapel, a convent or a monastery, escaped the 
devastation that resulted from these fanatical 
attacks. Paintings, statuary, altars and chap- 
els, even the tablets and monuments of the dead 
— the accumulated art treasures of centuries — 
were torn to pieces or carried bodily away. In 
some places the work of destruction was com- 



Audenaerde and Margaret of Parma 381 

pleted in a few hours, in others organised bands 
of pillagers worked systematically for days be- 
fore the local authorities — taken completely by 
surprise — recovered their wits and put a stop 
to the work of desecration. The loss to art and 
civilisation effected by the iconoclasts in Flan- 
ders is beyond computation. The Eegent acted 
with energy and decision, her spirited appeals to 
the magistrates finally bringing them to their 
senses and resulting in a speedy restoration of 
order. Philip, who had just cause for resent- 
ment, meditated vengeance, however, and in 
1568 replaced the t,oo gentle Margaret by the 
Duke of Alva. 

For the Professor the Hotel de Ville con- 
tained still another room of inexhaustible in- 
terest. This was the museum of the commune 
which occupies the entire second floor. For 
some reason — certainly not from fear of the 
suffragette, which is a non-existent species in 
Belgium — this is closed to the public, but we 
were admitted by courtesy of the Secretary of 
the Commune. The collection is of the utmost 
value to the historian and archeologist, but is 
rather badly kept. Among the most interest- 
ing objects were four chairs once used by 
Charles V; the ancient keyboard of the carillon 
which formerly hung in the belfry of the town 



382 The SpeU of Flanders 

kail but is now installed in the tower of Ste. 
Walburge, and some water-colour designs for 
tapestries. A large painting of the Last Judg- 
ment covered a considerable part of one wall. 
This is attributed to Heuvick, and originally 
hung in the Salle des Echevins. It was the an- 
cient custom to have a painting of this subject, 
covered by curtains, in the olden justice halls. 
When a witness was about to be sworn the cur- 
tains were suddenly drawn back and the sight 
of the picture, which represented with great 
vividness the destruction of the damned, was 
intended to prevent false testimony. The col- 
lection also included a variety of ancient arms 
and coins, several curious mediaeval strong 
boxes, and two huge snakes which hung from 
the rafters overhead. There are no snakes in 
Belgium to-day, but our guide assured us that 
a crocodile had once been taken in the Eiver 
Scheldt near Audenaerde, so the snakes may 
have been natives after all — -assuming, of 
course, that the crocodile story is correct. 

Back of the Hotel de Ville proper is the still 
more ancient Cloth Hall, dating from the be- 
giiming of the thirteenth century. Its small, 
high windows were built slantingly, to prevent 
archers from sending arrows directly into the 
interior. At some comparatively recent period 




CHURCH OP STE. WALBURGE, AUDENAERDE. 



Audenaerd e and Margaret of Parma 383 

two large windows were cut through the walls 
on each side, but a goodly number of the earlier 
windows still remain, and the beams that sup- 
port the high, pointed roof are still as sound 
as the day they were laid in positign. 

To the west of the Grande Place, and scarcely 
a stone's throw from Baldwin's Tower, rises 
the vast grey mass of Ste. Walburge, with ten 
or twelve tiny fifteenth or sixteenth century 
houses nestling snugly up against it. This 
splendid church dates from the very foundation 
of the city, an early chapel erected on this site 
having been sacked and burned by the Norse- 
men in 880. Twice after this the church Was 
destroyed in the wars between Flanders and 
France, but in 1150 was begun an edifice of 
which some portions still remain. When John 
the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, chose Auden- 
aerde as his Flemish place of residence the 
burghers determined to enlarge and beautify 
their church and erected the semi-circular por- 
tion of the choir in 1406 to 1408. Soon after- 
wards the great nave was begun, but was not 
completed for fully a century, in 1515. The 
tower, one of the finest in the world, advanced 
still more slowly and was not entirely finished 
until 1624. Its original height was three hun- 
dred and seventy-three feet, but in 1804 the 



384 The Spell of Flanders 

wooden spire was struck by lightning and 
burned. It has never been rebuilt, and the 
present height of the tower is two hundred and 
ninety-five feet. As it is, it dominates the lit- 
tle city and commands a wide view across the 
broad valley of the Scheldt in every direction. 
It was a stiff climb, up a perpetually winding 
stone stairway, to the top, but the view well 
repaid us for the exertion. 

The interior of the edifice suggests a great 
metropolitan cathedral rather than the chief 
church of a small provincial town. The choir, 
which suffered severely from the ravages of 
the iconoclasts, has recently been restored with 
great skill, and is now one of the most beautiful 
in Europe. This church contains several paint- 
ings by Simon de Pape, a native of Audenaerde, 
whose father was the architect of the spire 
burned in 1804, also an '' Assumption of the 
Virgin Mary " by Gaspard de Grayer, a fol- 
lower of Rubens, who painted more than two 
hundred religious pictures. This, like all the 
others, is of mediocre merit. To the student of 
history and of ancient art one of the most in- 
teresting treasures of the church is its collec- 
tion of tapestries of Audenaerde. Three of the 
more important ones represent landscapes — 
in fact the majority of Audenaerde tapestries 



Audenaerde and Margaret of Parma 385 

that I liave seen may be thus described — with 
castles, churches, and farmhouses in the centre 
and roses, tulips and other flowers in the fore- 
ground. Like most Audenaerde tapestries 
also they are crowded with winged creatures 
— birds flying or singing in the trees and hens, 
turkeys and pheasants strolling in the grass. 
A tapestry of a different genre is one belong- 
ing to the Confrerie de la Ste. Croix, which 
shows an Oriental landscape with Jerusalem in 
the distance, and at the four comers the fig- 
ures of Herod, Pilate, Anna and Caiphas. 

Tapestry weaving Was introduced into Flan- 
ders during the time of the Crusades, the re- 
ports of the returning crusaders regarding the 
splendid carpets and rugs of the Orient arous- 
ing a desire on the part of the Flemish weavers 
to imitate them. Castle walls, however thick 
and strongly built, were apt to be damp and 
cold and a great demand speedily sprang up 
for the new productions for wall coverings. 
Starting at Arras and Tournai, the manufac- 
ture of tapestries spread to all the cities in the 
valley of the Scheldt and received a particu- 
larly important development at Audenaerde, 
which soon became the leading tapestry cen- 
tre of Flanders. The weavers adopted Saint 
Barbara as their patron, and in 1441 were or- 



386 The Spell of Flanders 

ganised into a corporation. In their original 
charter it was stipulated that each apprentice 
must work three years for his first employer. 
Despite the severity of this regulation the 
manufacture of tapestries expanded with such 
rapidity that in 1539 no less than twenty thou- 
sand persons — including men, women and 
children — were employed as tapestry weavers 
at Audenaerde and its environs. 

Among the famous Flemish artists who 
painted designs for the tapestry weavers of 
Audenaerde may be mentioned Floris, Coxcie, 
Rubens, David Teniers, Gaspar de Witte, Vic- 
tor Janssens, Peter Spierinckx, Adolphus de 
Gryeff, and Alexander Van Bredael, while there 
were a host of others. Gradually, however, the 
artisans began to be discontented with their 
rate of pay, which the master tapestry makers 
kept at a low figure, and the advent of the re- 
ligious wars found them eager to join any 
movement of revolt. After the outburst of the 
iconoclasts and the arrival of the Duke of Alva 
many fled to the Dutch provinces and to Eng- 
land, never to return. This emigration con- 
tinued well into the seventeenth century, as 
various decrees passed by the magistrates be- 
tween 1604 and 1621, confiscating the posses- 
sions of such emigrants, testify. 



Audenaerde and Margaret of Parma 387 

Another cause that contributed to the ruin 
of the tapestry industry at Audenaerde was the 
active effort made by the Kings of France, 
Louis XIII and Louis XIV, to induce the best 
weavers and master-workmen to emigrate to 
Paris. Philippe Bobbins, one of the most cele- 
brated master-weavers of Audenaerde, was in- 
vited to come to France in 1622 and was after- 
wards proclaimed at Beavais to be the Chef 
de tons les tapitsers du Roy. Many of the 
weavers who went to Paris and Brussels on 
their own account established ateliers where 
they manufactured what they proclaimed to be 
veritahles tapis d' Audenaerde, and this com- 
petition still further injured the industry which 
soon afterward disappeared entirely from the 
city that gave its name to this type of tapestry 
and has never since been re-established there. 
With the departure of its weavers the little city 
on the Scheldt rapidly declined in importance, 
and for the past two centuries has been the 
sleepy little market-town that it is to-day. 

On the other side of the Eiver Scheldt, which 
flows through the town and is crossed by 
several bridges, is the interesting Church of 
Notre Dame de Pamela, which dates from the 
thirteenth century, having been constructed in 
the remarkably short space of four years and 



388 The Spell of Flanders 

completed in 1239. It thus belongs to the 
transitional period between the Eomanesque 
style and the pure Gothic and is of interest to 
the student of architecture as one of the most 
perfect examples of this period in Flanders. 
The general effect of the interior, especially 
when viewed from the foot of the organ loft, is 
noble and imposing in the highest degree. Our 
visit was during a sunny afternoon, and the 
effect of the long beams of light f allijig from the 
lofty windows of the nave across the stately 
pillars below was indescribably beautiful. 
Truly this masterpiece of stone expresses in its 
every line the truth of Montalembert's beauti- 
ful remark that in such a church every column, 
every soaring arch, is a prayer to the Most 
High. 

One of the most curious of the paintings in 
Notre Dame de Pamela is a triptych by Jean 
Snellinck, a painter of Antwerp and a fore- 
runner of Eubens who was greatly in vogue 
among the tapestry weavers of Audenaerde. 
This work represents the " Creation of Eve " 
in the central panel, the " Temptation " at the 
left and the ^' Expulsion from Eden " at the 
right. The figures are all finely painted, es- 
pecially those in the left wing, and the entire 
work is an admirable example of early Flemish 



Audenaerde and Margaret of Parma 389 

art. The cliurcli also possesses an interesting 
work by Simon de Pape representing the in- 
vention of the cross. Beneath the organ loft 
were three tapestries of Audenaerde workman- 
ship which the caretaker obligingly spread out 
on the church floor for our inspection. All 
were in a poor state of preservation. One rep- 
resented a woodland scene with three peasants 
on their way to market in the foreground. The 
second had a curious group of fowls in the 
foreground, while the third showed a sylvan 
scene with a mother and three daughters, each 
of the girls bearing a basket of flowers. 

Both Ste. Walburge and Notre Dame de 
Pamela suffered severely from the fury of the 
iconoclasts, although the storm broke in Aude- 
naerde at a later period than in the larger cities 
farther to the eastward. The cure of Ste. 
Walburge and four priests of Notre Dame de 
Pamela were thrown by the rioters into the 
Scheldt and drowned October 4th, 1572, while 
both churches were sacked. 

On our way back from visiting the smaller 
church we paused on the quay named Smallen- 
dam to admire the superb view of Ste. Wal- 
burge across the river. A bit further on we 
entered a quaint little estaminet bearing the 
inviting name of In der Groote Pinte which 



390 The Spell of Flanders 

we freely translated as '' the big pint." Ap- 
parently our Flemisli was inexact, for the bev- 
erage with which we were served was not not- 
able for quantity. It proved, moreover, to be 
exceedingly sour and unpleasant, and we left 
our glasses unfinished. In the course of a tour 
around the town we inspected what remains of 
the ancient Chateau de Bourgogne, the early 
residence of the Dukes of Burgundy. The 
principal building is now used by a Justice of 
the Peace, and we found little of interest save 
some old walls and a massive inner courtyard. 
At the hospital of Notre Dame, opposite the 
great tower of Ste. Walburge, we found two 
more Audenaerde tapestries in an admirable 
state of preservation, while a dozen fine me- 
diaeval doorways in different parts of the town 
attracted our attention. For so small a place 
there are a great many religious institutions, 
many of them of great antiquity. Among 
these may be mentioned the Convents of the 
Black Sisters (Convents des Soeurs-Noires), 
the Abbey of Maegdendale, the Convent of 
Notre Dame de Sion, and the Beguinage — the 
last an especially charming little spot with a 
delightful street entrance dating from the mid- 
dle of the seventeenth century. 

It is hard to believe, as one wanders about 



Audenaerde and Margaret of Parma 391 

the half -deserted streets of this sleepy old 
Flemish town, that in its day of greatness it 
was a city of no mean power, holding its own 
sturdily against the greatest princes in the 
world. Of its ancient walls and towers not a 
single trace remains, yet those vanished ram- 
parts four times in less than two centuries de- 
fied the armies of the neighbouring — but, alas, 
not always neighbourly — city of Ghent, even 
the redoubtable Philip Van Artevelde retir- 
ing from in front of them discomfited in 1382. 
Three centuries later, in 1684, Louis XIV was 
beaten off from an assault on these same walls, 
but in revenge he ordered the bombardment of 
the city. This resulted in a conflagration from 
which it had not fully recovered half a century 
later. In 1708 the Duke of Marlborough and 
Prince Eugene of Savoy won a great victory 
over the French under the walls of Audenaerde. 
To this day along the frontier between France 
and Flanders the peasant women lull their 
babies to sleep with a crooning ballad which 
begins : 

Malbrook s'en va't en guerre, 
Mirlonton, mirlonton, mirlontaine ; 
Malbrook s'en va't en guerre, 
Dieu salt quand il reviendra. 
II reviendra a Paques, 
Mirlonton, mirlonton, mirlontaine, 



392 The Spell of Flanders 

II reviendra a Paques, 
Ou a la Trinite. (bis) 

Small wonder that even the nursery songs 
tell of war and chant the name of the great 
Duke two hundred years after the Battle of 
Audenaerde, for during three centuries the 
Flemish plains were the battlefield of Europe. 
Happily the present war has not as yet smitten 
Audenaerde with any serious damage, although 
Le Petit Guerrier, from his perch on the belfry 
of the Hotel de Ville, has no doubt looked down 
upon long lines of marching men and gleaming 
bayonets. 




CHAPTER XVIII 

OLD ANTWERP ITS HISTOEY AND LEGENDS 

JHILE Bruges and Ghent were in their 
prime as centres of Flemish commerce 
and industry a rival that was destined 
ultimately to supplant and eclipse them -both 
was slowly growing up along the banks of the 
Eiver Scheldt at a point where that important 
stream, which flows entirely across Flanders, 
becomes a tidal estuary. From the most an- 
cient times the prosperity of Antwerp — which 
in French is called Anvers, in Flemish Ant- 
werpen — has been closely connected with the 
river. According to the legends a giant named 
Antigonus once had a castle where the city now 
stands and exacted a toll of all who passed up 
or down the river. Evasion of this primitive 
high tariff was punished by cutting off both the 
culprit's hands. Of course this giant just had 
to be killed by the hero, whose name was Brabo, 
and who was said to have been a lieutenant of 
Csesar. Brabo cut off the dead giant's right 
hand and flung it into the river in token that 

393 



394 The Spell of Flanders 

thenceforth it should be free from similar ex- 
tortions. The visitor will find this legend re- 
called in the city's arms — which has two 
hands surmounting a castle — and in many 
works of art. Brabo is said to have become 
the first Margrave of Antwerp, and to have 
founded a line of seventeen Margraves, all 
bearing the same name, but the deeds and even 
the existence of these princes is as mythical as 
those of their ancestor — or the famous legend 
of Lohengrin, which belongs to this period of 
Antwerp's history. 

Like London, Antwerp is situated sixty miles 
from the sea. In olden days commerce was 
rather inclined to seek the more inland ports, 
as being safer from storms and less exposed to 
sudden attacks. The size of ocean-going ships 
was, moreover, slowly but steadily increasing 
from generation to generation, and this in- 
crease favoured Antwerp, which had a deep, 
sure channel to the sea, as against its early 
rival Bruges, whose outlet, the little River 
Zwyn, was gradually silting up. The fact that 
the town was situated just outside of the do- 
minions of the Counts of Flanders probably 
helped its early growth, for the jealous men of 
Bruges might otherwise have obtained from 
the Counts decrees restricting, and perhaps 



Old Antwerp — History and Legends 395 

prohibiting, its expansion. As it was, the great 
Counts ruled all of the left bank of the Scheldt 
from Antwerp to the sea, and also the waters 
of the river as far as one could ride into it on 
horseback and then reach with extended sword. 

The Tete de Flandre, opposite the centre of 
the older part of the city, marks the end of 
Flanders proper in this direction. As already 
explained by the Professor, however, Antwerp 
is none the less essentially a Flemish city in its 
art and architecture, its language and litera- 
ture, and for many centuries of its brilliant 
history, and for these reasons deserves a place 
in this book. 

Like the County of Flanders, the region sur- 
rounding Antwerp was an outlying " march " 
or frontier district of the Empire, and its rulers 
therefore derived their feudal title from the 
Emperor. About the year 1100 the Emperor 
bestowed the march on Godfrey of the Beard, 
Count of Louvain and first Duke of Brabant. 
To the Dukes of Brabant it thereafter always 
belonged until that title, with so many others, 
became merged in those acquired by the Dukes 
of Burgundy and united in their illustrious de- 
scendant, Charles V. On the whole, the Dukes, 
being absentees, were easy rulers — the shrewd 
burghers seizing upon their moments of weak- 



396 The Spell of Flanders 

ness to wrest new privileges from them, and 
relying upon their strength for protection in 
times of danger. From time immemorial the 
burghers claimed a monopoly right to trade in 
fish, salt and oats. Other trading privileges 
followed, and by the time of the first Duke of 
Brabant the town was already an important 
one, with a powerful Burg, or fortress, sur- 
rounding five acres of land and buildings. 
Among the latter was the Steen, or feudal 
prison, a part of which still stands close to the 
river and is used as a museum of antiquities. 

The early Dukes greatly extended the com- 
mercial rights and privileges of the town, 
Henry III granting a charter that allowed its 
citizens to hold bread and meat markets and 
trade in corn and cloth. Duke John I granted 
rights in his famous Core van Antwerpen, 
dated nearly five hundred years before the Dec- 
laration of Independence, that were remark- 
able for wisdom and liberality. *' "Within the 
town of Antwerp," the charter read, '' all men 
are free and there are no slaves. No inhab- 
itant may be deprived of his natural judges, nor 
arrested in his house on civil suit." In 1349 
Duke John III granted a charter that not only 
confirmed all of its ancient privileges, but gave 
exceptional rights and liberties to foreigners 



Old Antwerp — History and Legends 397 

— causing many of them to come and settle 
there. Among these was the right granted to 
any dweller within the city to sue: citizens 
according to local customs, foreigners accord- 
ing to the laws of their own lands. As at 
Bruges and Ghent all these precious charters 
were kept in a box having many locks, of which 
the keys were kept by delegates of the Broad 
Council of the city. '' This box," said Mr. 
Wilfred Eobinson, in his valuable historical 
sketch of Antwerp, '^ might only be opened in 
the presence of all the civic authorities, while 
they stood around it bareheaded and holding 
lighted tapers in their hands. Truly it must 
have been a quaint and solemn scene! " 

Some fifty years prior to the charter last 
mentioned Duke John II married one of the 
daughters of Edward I, King of England, and 
gave that monarch the city of Antwerp as a fief. 
Edward III used the city as a naval base, and 
in 1339 signed there with Jacques Van Arte- 
velde a treaty of alliance with the communes of 
Brabant and Flanders. The Kings of England 
did not, however, retain their suzerainty over 
Antwerp verjr long, for it next passed — once 
more by marriage — to the daughter of Louis 
of Maele, Count of Flanders. The city sought 
to resist, and Count Louis was obliged to be- 



398 The Spell of Flanders 

siege it and punished the burghers severely for 
their disobedience. On his death it passed to 
Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, along with 
the entire County of Flanders of which it was 
then a part, and thereafter remained under the 
Burgundian Dukes and their successors. 

In 1446 Philip the Good — whose policy had 
proved so disastrous to Bruges and Ghent — 
laid the foundation for the commercial great- 
ness of Antwerp by a liberal charter which he 
granted to the Merchant Adventurers of Eng- 
land. The English merchants had already left 
Bruges, where the River Zwyn was fast silting 
up, and now came to Antwerp and established 
there a most extensive trade. They were fol- 
lowed by the merchants of the other nations, 
and in less than seventy-five years after the 
granting of the charter the population of the 
city had doubled twice — from less than seven- 
teen thousand to over forty-four thousand in- 
habitants. 

It was during this period that many of the 
most interesting structures of ' ' old Antwerp ' ' 

— the portion of the city between the Steen and 
the cathedral and north of the Hotel de Ville 

— were built. We spent several interesting 
mornings tramping these quaint old winding 
streets, some of which are still as mediaeval in 




THE VIELLE BOUCHERIE. ANTWERP. 



Old Antwerp — History and Legends 399 

aspect as any to be seen in Europe. The Vielle 
Boucherie, recently restored, dates from the 
reign of Louis of Maele. In its time it con- 
tained .stalls for fifty-three butchers. The 
streets surrounding this quaint structure of 
ragged brick are well nigh as ancient and in- 
tereSkting as the ' ' monuments ' ' which one en- 
counters here and there while exploring them. 
The Steen itself dates, as we have seen, from 
the very earliest period of the city's history, 
but is only a remnant of what it was. In the 
days of the Spanish Inquisition this grim old 
structure became a place of dread, and its 
gloomy dungeons — which the cheerful and 
smiling guide showed us by candlelight, for two 
cents a head — were in constant use for the en- 
tertainment of guests of the Margraves and 
their successors, the Burgundian Dukes, for 
nigh on to eight centuries. 

In 1485 the rivalry between Antwerp and 
Bruges reached the point of open war. The 
men of Bruges built a fort commanding the 
Eiver Scheldt at a point near Calloo, mounting 
on it no less than sixty cannon. The Antwerp 
burghers met this challenge by building a sim- 
ilar fort at Austruwel, and then attacked and 
captured the Flemish fort on April 23 — St. 
George's Day. A yearly procession still com- 



400 The Spell of Flanders 

memorates this victory in tlie long contest to 
maintain the freedom of the river. A fleet of 
forty-nine merchant vessels that the Flemings 
had detained came triumphantly up the river, 
and the conflict for supremacy between the old 
sea gateway of the Netherlands and the new 
was settled once for all — as far as poor 
Bruges was concerned — in favour of Antwerp, 
the new maritime queen of the North. 

The river itself seemed to favour the pros- 
perity of Antwerp, as if proud and eager to be- 
come the handmaiden of so valiant and beauti- 
ful a city, for the western entrance of the 
Scheldt gradually deepened at about this pe- 
riod — from causes that in those days no one 
tried to understand. This gave the port a deep 
channel to the sea to accommodate the growing 
draught of ocean-going ships. The discoveries 
of Columbus and Vasco da Gama helped the 
port also. Until then Venice had enjoyed a 
monopoly of the sugar trade of the East. Now 
it came sea-borne to Antwerp, and the formerly 
profitable overland sugar trade between Venice 
and Germany was ruined. This caused the 
Portuguese to establish a factory at Antwerp. 
The Spaniards followed, while the English and 
Italians enlarged their warehouses. Several 
great German trading houses opened premises 



Old Antwerp— History and Legends 401 

in the city, although the Hanseatic League did 
not abandon Bruges for Antwerp until 1545 — 
being the very last to go. 

While the decline of Bruges led the painters 
of that city to desert it for its fast-growing 
rival on the Scheldt, Quentin Matsys, the 
greatest of the early Antwerp artists, does not 
seem to have derived much of his inspiration 
from the masterpieces of the Bruges school. 
The early chronicles give a most romantic ac- 
count of the life of this painter, who was born 
at Louvain about 1466. According to these 
more or less legendary stories he was at first a 
blacksmith, and changed to a painter through 
love for a damsel whose father was a great 
patron and admirer of that art. Another ac- 
count has- it that he took up painting owing to 
illness, first colouring images of the saints such 
as were then given to children during the car- 
nival. Blacksmith he certainly was, as his 
father had been before him, and the wonderful 
cover for the well in front of the cathedral is 
his handiwork. It seems probable, however, 
that he first learned the art of painting at Lou- 
vain, probably as an apprentice to the son of 
Dierick Bouts. At Antwerp he soon fell in love 
with a beautiful girl, who may have been the 
model for some of his charming Madonnas. 



402 The Spell of Flanders 

The story is told by one old chronicler that the 
maiden's father opposed the match because the 
young suitor was not a sufficiently skilful artist. 
On a certain occasion Matsys, finding his in- 
tended father-in-law out, painted a fly on one of 
the figures in a painting belonging to him. On 
his return the owner of the painting started to 
brush the fly off and, seeing his mistake, heart- 
ily admitted that the young artist who had 
painted it merited all praise and gave his con- 
sent to the nuptials. 

The museum at Antwerp is rich in master- 
pieces by Matsys, including his greatest work, 
'' The Entombment." This is a triptych, the 
panels showing Herod's banquet with the head 
of John the Baptist lying on the table, and St. 
John in the boiling oil. The '' Madonna," in 
the same museum, is one of the sweetest faces 
ever painted among the hundreds of Madonnas 
that abound in mediaeval art, and one cannot 
but feel that it is the very face that won the 
heart of the artist and caused him to adopt 
painting as his profession. Its resemblance 
to the face of the Madonna now in the Berlin 
museum strengthens this theory. At Antwerp 
also there are to be seen '' The Holy Face," a 
companion painting to the '* Madonna " just 
mentioned, and the gruesome yet appealing 




THE BANKER AND HIS WIFE. MATSYS. 



Old Antwerp — History and Legends 403 

" Veil of Veronica," showing the livid face of 
the Saviour with drops of blood from the cruel 
crown of thorns trickling down across it. The 
museum at Brussels possesses another master- 
piece, and the oldest dated picture by this art- 
ist, '' The Legend of St. Anne," which was 
completed in 1509 for the brotherhood of St. 
Anne at Louvain. He also painted several 
strong and striking portraits, of which the best 
is that of Erasmus at the Stadel Institute at 
Frankfort. Matsys was one of the first Flem- 
ish artists to present subjects of every-day life 
as well as religious episodes and characters. 
'' The Banker and his Wife," at the Louvre 
in Paris, is the finest example of this kind. 
There are authenticated works by this mas- 
ter in a number of European museums, while 
a considerable number of his pictures have 
become lost or have not as yet been identi- 
fied. 

Matsys is the greatest name in the history of 
Flemish art between the masters of Bruges and 
the school of Eubens. It was his success that 
made Antwerp the Florence of the North. 
Among Matsys' successors Frans de Vriendt, 
better known as Frans Floris, was one of the 
most notable. He was a member of the Ant- 
werp guild of St. Luke at the age of twenty- 



404 The Spell of Flanders 

three, and produced a vast number of works, 
many of which can still be seen scattered among 
the churches and art collections of Flanders. 
He had over one hundred pupils, of whom Mar- 
tin de Vos achieved the greatest fame. As this 
painter worked after the destruction of the 
image-breakers many of his religious subjects 
survive to this day. The Antwei^ museum 
contains no less than twenty-three of his works, 
as against only four by his master. Both of 
these artists, however, were profound admirers 
of the Italian school, and the work of Floris 
especially — though vastly admired in his day 
— is now looked upon as more Italian than 
Flemish, more imitative than original. 

This cannot be said of the next really great 
painter to appear in Flanders, Peter Breughel 
the Elder. Born at the little village of Breu- 
'ghel, near Breda in Brabant, about 1526, this 
artist studied for a time in Italy — as did all 
of his contemporaries — and then settled at 
Antwerp. Here he obtained the themes of 
many of his most famous compositions. " In 
the port, in the tavern, in the fairs of neigh- 
bouring villages," says Prof. A. J. Wauters, 
** meeting now a young couple in the giddy 
dance, or a drunkard stumbling in his path, he 
sought the humble spectacle of homely things, 



Old Antwerp — ^History and Legends 405 

the noisy mirth of rustic festivities, and was al- 
ways in quest of every-day subjects, which 
earned for him, at the hands of posterity, the 
surname of ' Breughel of Peasants.' " He 
later removed to Brussels, where he received 
many commissions, particularly from the Em- 
peror Eudolph II, who greatly admired his 
work. Several of his chief masterpieces are 
therefore in the Imperial Museum at Vienna, 
but the Royal Museum at Antwerp contains 
four of his works, while several others are scat- 
tered about Europe. 

To the lover of Flemish paintings Breughel 
is one of the most characteristic and charming 
of them all. His art is distinctively Flemish, 
in subject, treatment and inspiration. Some- 
what influenced perhaps by Jerome Bosch, a 
Brabant painter of the previous century re- 
nowned for his weird and eccentric conceptions, 
Breughel is never conventional. His work is 
that of a humourist, a satirist who sees the fol- 
lies of the world but laughs at them. His pic- 
tures are admirable in their colouring, execu- 
tion and the grouping of the figures, and they 
are especially interesting in their vivid por- 
trayal of the every-day Flemish life of the times 
in which he lived. 

The visitor to Antwerp cannot fail to observe 



406 The Spell of Flanders 

the images of the Virgin placed at the corners 
of nearly every street in the older quarter of 
the city. These are said to be due to the Long 
Wapper, a somewhat humorous but none the less 
grim and terrifying fiend who was wont, many 
centuries ago, to play weird pranks upon the 
good people of Antwerp after nightfall. He used 
to lie in wait for wayfarers upon deserted by- 
streets in the uncanny hours between midnight 
and dawn. Pouncing upon his terrified vic- 
tims, he would carry them off, sometimes never 
to return. Now and then he assumed the form 
of a lost baby, to which, being found by some 
charitable mother, the breast was given. Pres- 
ently the good woman discovered to her horror 
that the foundling was swelling and becoming 
heavy, and when she put it down the Wapper 
assumed his own shape and ran off shrieking. 
At times he peered into church windows and 
howled and gibbered at the worshippers, and 
afterwards frightened them terribly as they 
went homeward, or, stretching his body to an 
incredible length, he peered into the upper win- 
dows of people's houses. Men feared to speak 
evil of the Long Wapper, for something terri- 
ble was certain to happen to those who did. At 
last it was found that he would never pass an 
image of the Virgin, and that is why so many 



Old Antwerp — ^History and Legends 407 



were erected that finally tke evil fiend liad no 
more streets left in which to play his mad 
pranks and left Antwerp for the lonely moors 
and dunes along the seacoast where he is still 
said to be seen. 

The place most frequented by the Long Wap- 
per was a little stream which came to be called 
the Wappersrui in consequence, and a bridge 
across it the Wappersbrucke. Here he often 
strode out of the water with his long thin legs 
extending far down into its dark depths like 
two black stilts. Once he had reached the em- 
bankment he shrank instantly to a diminutive 
size — usually taking the form of a schoolboy. 
These first appearances were generally between 
daylight and dark, when the twilight made it 
difficult to distinguish faces clearly, and he al- 
ways took the place of some boy who happened 
to be absent. A favourite game of the boys, 
who were then returning from school, was 
called shove-hat. In this game one boy tossed 
his hat on the ground and the others shoved 
and kicked it about with their feet while its 
owner sought to regain it. When it came the 
turn of the Long Wapper to throw down his 
hat the first one to give it a kick broke his 
wooden shoe to pieces and fractured his toes, 
for the hat proved to be a heavy iron pot. Then 



408 The Spell of Flanders 

the street echoed with a jeering '* Ha, ha, ha! " 
but the Wapper had disappeared. 

His pranks upon grown-up people were apt 
to be far more serious in their consequences 
than those just described. Often he paused at 
some tavern door and joined the party seated 
there in a game of cards, which invariably re- 
sulted in a violent quarrel in the course of 
which one or more of the players was usually 
killed. On another occasion he appeared in 
broad daylight selling mussels. Encountering 
four women sitting outside their door at work 
he opened a mussel and offered it to one of them. 
She tasted it, but it turned into dirt in her 
mouth. Apologising, he opened another, which 
all could see was a sound, fine mussel, and of- 
fered it to another of the women. No sooner 
was it in her mouth than it turned into a huge 
spider. The women thereupon set upon him, 
but he defended himself so rudely that two of 
them were nearly killed, when he suddenly van- 
ished, leaving only an echo of wild laughter. 

In the country to the east of Antwerp there 
are many quaint legends still told at the peas- 
ants' firesides on stormy winter nights about 
the Kaboutermannekens who in ancient times 
frequented that neighbourhood. Near the vil- 
lage of Gelrode there is a small hill on the sides 



Old Antwerp — History and Legends 409 

of which are many little caves which were for- 
merly the abode of these fairies, the hill being 
called the Kabouterberg to this day in conse- 
quence. There is a similar hill, called Kabou- 
termannekensberg, between Turnhout and Cas- 
terle. They were also called Red Caps or 
Klabbers, and were usually clad in red from 
head to foot, and often had green hands and 
faces, according to those who were so for- 
tunate as to see them. These little gnomes or 
elves seem to have resembled their kind as re- 
ported in the folk-lore of other northern coun- 
tries, being the willing and loyal slaves of those 
who treated them kindly, and the bitter, and 
sometimes dangerous, enemies of those who 
misused them. 

Still another local sprite — this time a spirit 
of evil resembling in some respects the Long 
Wapper — was known as Kludde. This fiend 
was often met with after dark in many parts 
of Flanders, and even in Brabant. At times 
Kludde would appear to the peasants as the 
dusk of twilight was deepening into the intense 
darkness of night on the Flemish plains, in 
the guise of an old, half-starved horse. If a 
farmer or stable-boy mistook him for one of his 
own horses and mounted on Kludde he in- 
stantly rushed off at an incredible speed until 



410 The SpeU of Flanders 



lie came to some water into wliicli he pitched 
his terrified rider headlong. This accom- 
plished to his satisfaction he vanished, crying 
'' Kludde, Kludde! " as he went away, whence 
came his name. 




CHAPTEE XIX 

THEEE CENTURIES OF ANTWERP PEINTEES 

'HE joyous entry of the boy prince who 
was afterward to become Charles V was 
the signal for ten days of rejoicing by 
the citizens of Antwerp. This was early in the 
year 1515; and, in truth, the city prospered 
mightily under the rule of the great Emperor, 
who favoured it on many notable occasions. 
The bankers and merchant princes of Antwerp 
became renowned the world over for their 
wealth and magnificence. Anthony Fugger, 
who was the banker of Maximilian and Charles 
V, left a fortune of six million golden crowns, 
and it is said that his name survives to this day 
as a synonym for wealth — the common people 
calling any one who is extremely rich a rykke 
Fohker, a rich Fugger. It is related that an- 
other rich Antwerp' merchant, Gasparo Dozzo, 
on being privileged to entertain the Emperor 
in his house, cast into the fire a promissory 
note for a large loan he had formerly made to 
his sovereign. 

411 



412 The Spell of Flanders 

This period of wealth and prosperity contin- 
ued till the very end of the reign of the Em- 
peror, but under his successor, Philip II, the 
city was plunged into misfortunes and miseries 
as swift and as appalling as those that befell 
in the terrible Fall of 1914. In 1556 Philip 
opened a chapter of the Knights of the Golden 
Fleece at St. Mary's, afterward the cathedral, 
in Antwerp — thereby recognising the suprem- 
acy of this town over the others in his Flemish 
domiuions. Among the new knights to whom 
he gave the accolade were William the Silent 
and the Count of Horn. Little men thought 
on that day of festivity and good will what the 
future held in store for them all ! 

On August 18, 1566, the miraculous statue of 
the Blessed Virgin was taken from its place in 
St. Mary's church and carried through the 
streets of the city in a solemn procession — as 
it had been for nearly two hundred years. 
This time there were murmurs of disapproval 
from the crowds that lined the streets, some 
stones were thrown, and the procession hastily 
returned to the church. The next day a small 
mob, composed for the most part of boys and 
men of the lowest class, entered the church and 
destroyed the statue and the entire contents of 
the sacred edifice, including some seventy al- 



Three Centuries of Antwerp Printers 413 

tars, and paintings and statues almost without 
number. The organ, then the wonder of Eu- 
rope, was ruined, and the rabble dressed itself 
in the costly vestments of the clergy and car- 
ried away the treasures of the church and even 
the contents of the poor boxes. This was the 
beginning of the work of the image-breakers, 
as they came to be called, which spread 
throughout Flanders until scarcely a religious 
edifice had escaped the destruction of its mov- 
able contents, while a few here and there were 
burned. As noted in the chapter on Aude- 
naerde, Margaret of Parma was Eegent at this 
time and acted resolutely to suppress the dis- 
orders — which were largely due to the supine 
attitude of the local magistrates at the begin- 
ning. 

She had all but succeeded in restoring peace 
and quiet throughout Flanders when Philip 
suddenly decided to send an army there, and 
selected the Duke of Alva to command it. The 
story of the eighty years' war that followed is 
familiar to every American through Motley's 
account of it, although that brilliant writer is 
more concerned with the details relating to the 
Dutch provinces than those regarding the por- 
tion of the Netherlands that remained subject 
to Spain. Two events, however, in the long 



414 The Spell of Flanders 

war were so directly concerned with Antwerp, 
and loom so large in its history, that they can- 
not be passed over here. Both have a renewed 
interest in view of the history of Antwerp's 
latest siege in 1914. These are the Spanish 
Fury, and the great siege of the city by the 
Duke of Parma. 

Alva, who superseded the gentle Margaret of 
Parma as Eegent of the Netherlands, quickly 
took stern measures for the repression of fur- 
ther disorders at Antwerp, which he regarded 
as a hot-bed of heresy. A huge citadel was 
built at the southern end of the town, near the 
Scheldt, in 1572, in the centre of which Alva 
erected a bronze statue of himself. On the 
marble pedestal the inscription related how 
"the most faithful minister of the best of 
Kings had stamped out sedition, repelled the 
rebels, set up religion, and restored justice and 
peace to the country." So far were these 
boasts from being true that only the following 
year, in 1573, Alva stole away to Spain se- 
cretly, his government a failure, his army mu- 
tinous, and half of the country he had been sent 
to rule in open and successful revolt. War 
with England had ruined the commerce of Ant- 
werp, Alva's fiscal policy and incessant taxes 
had half beggared the people of the entire 



Three Centuries of Antwerp Printers 415 

country, while thousands of the noblest and 
bravest in the land had met death on the scaf- 
fold or in the torture chambers of the Inquisi- 
tion. 

Eequesens, the next Eegent, was unable 
either to stem the rising tide of revolt or to pay 
his soldiers — King Philip failing to send funds 
until the pay of the Spanish veterans was at 
one time twenty-two months in arrears. The 
sudden death of Eequesens in 1576 left matters 
in a nearly chaotic condition. The veterans 
who had been fighting in Zeeland against the 
Dutch mutinied and returning to Flanders cap- 
tured the town of Alost, where they forced the 
citizens to give them food and shelter. On No- 
vember 4th, 1576, the mutineers marched to 
Antwerp, some two thousand strong, where 
they joined the Spaniards and mercenaries in 
the citadel. They were under the command of 
an Eletto, or elected leader. Jerome Eoda, a 
Spaniard, had proclaimed himself the com- 
mandant of the fortress until the new Eegent, 
Don John of Austria, should arrive in Flan- 
ders. Under these two worthies the combined 
forces in the citadel, some five thousand men in 
all, proceeded to attack the city. The citizens, 
on their side, had for some time feared such 
an attack and should have been able to repel it. 



416 The Spell of Flanders 

There were fourteen thousand armed bur- 
ghers, four thousand Walloons and an equal 
number of German troops — twenty-two thou- 
sand in all. It may have been that they felt 
unduly secure against an attack on that day be- 
cause it was Sunday. It is certain that they 
were badly commanded. 

Shortly after noon the Spaniards rushed 
from the citadel and across the broad open es- 
planade cleared a few years before by Alva, 
shouting their war cry, Sant J ago y cierra Es- 
pana. The Eletto was the first to fall, but the 
rush of furious soldiers was not to be stopped 
by a single volley. The Walloons put up a 
brave fight but part of the Germans treacher- 
ously lowered their pikes and let the Spaniards 
pass down the rue St. Georges. On the Place 
de Meir the defenders made another stand, but 
were swiftly swept back in a confused and dis- 
organised mass by the Spanish cavalry. At 
the Hotel de Ville the burghers fought fiercely 
until the mutineers set fire to the edifice. In 
the conflagration that followed not only this 
noble structure, one of the finest in Europe, but 
the adjoining guild houses and some eighty 
other buildings were consumed. Of the Hotel 
de Ville only the blackened walls remained. 
By nightfall the Spaniards and the German 



Three Centuries of Antwerp Printers 417 

mercenaries, most of whom had joined the vic- 
tors in order to share in the spoils, were mas- 
ters of the doomed city. 

That night the scenes of pillage and rapine 
as the savage and half drunken soldiers swept 
through the streets and ransacked the houses 
of all who did not instantly pay a stiff ransom, 
exceed the descriptive powers of the contempo- 
rary historians. One of the burgomasters was 
stabbed to end a quarrel as to his ransom. 
Many burghers were killed near the town hall, 
or were burned within it like rats. For three 
days the city was given up to be sacked. The 
number who were killed, including women and 
children, has been variously estimated at from 
seven thousand to seventeen thousand of the 
citizens and defenders of the city, and from two 
hundred and fifty to six hundred of the Span- 
iards. The loss in property amounted to many 
millions, but no accurate estimate could be made 
of it, as many who suffered most in this respect 
lost their lives as well. Cartloads of plunder 
were sent out of the city, while much of it was 
actually sold by those who did not care or dare 
to keep it in a temporary market-place at the 
Bourse. Some were said to have concealed 
their wealth by having sword hilts and breast- 
plates made of solid gold. Like the ill-gotten 



418 The Spell of Flanders 

gains of tlie Spaniards in America, however, 
none of this booty — the reward of treachery, 
of assassination, of cruelty and the sudden set- 
ting free of all the basest elements in human 
nature — profited its captors very greatly. In 
a few days after the arrival of Don John, the 
new Regent, the mutinous soldiers were paid 
off and marched away to Maestricht and pres- 
ently to other battlefields, from Flanders to 
Lombardy, where, no doubt, most of the golden 
breastplates and sword hilts fell — in due time 
— to other conquerors. Such was the Spanish 
Fury — until 1914 the worst blot on civilisation 
that history records. 

Soon after the Spaniards left the city per- 
mission was given to the people to destroy the 
citadel that the tyrant Alva had built to over- 
awe the town. The entire population flocked to 
this welcome task — men, women and children, 
each taking a shovel, a basket or a barrow. It 
is related that even the great ladies of the city 
took part in the work of demolition — so hated 
had the grim fortress become. The statue of 
the cruel Duke that he had so vaingloriously 
erected in the centre of the citadel only five 
years before was torn down and dragged 
through the streets by a cheering throng. 
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Three Centuries of Antwerp Printers 419 

ture of this incident which hangs in the Ant- 
werp museum. 

Six years later the Duke d'Alengon, who had 
been made nominal sovereign over the Low 
Countries by William the Silent, planned to 
treacherously attack and sack the city with his 
French soldiers, some three thousand, five hun- 
dred strong. This time, however, the citizens 
were not caught napping and when the tocsin 
in the cathedral called the alarm the burghers 
rushed out in thousands. The French swash- 
bucklers proved to be less stubborn fighters than 
the Spanish veterans and soon were driven back 
in a confused mass to the city gates, most of 
them being killed and the cowardly Duke only 
saving himself by flight. This episode has been 
derisively called the French Fury. It hap- 
pened January 17, 1583. 

The following year Alexander Farnese, the 
Duke of Parma — and the son of the Duchess 
of Parma, whose career as Eegent of the Neth- 
erlands was briefly described in the chapter on 
Audenaerde, her birthplace — determined to be- 
siege Antwerp, which, since the Spanish Fury, 
had fallen into the hands of the revolted Prov- 
inces. Unfortunately for its defenders, Wil- 
liam the Silent had just died at the hands of an 
assassin and his plans for the protection of the 



420 The Spell of Flanders 

city by flooding all of the marshes surrounding 
it were not followed. The butchers opposed 
flooding all of their pasture lands and the im- 
portant Kowenstein Dyke was not cut. The 
Prince of Parma, who was the greatest military 
leader of his age, swiftly captured the forts on 
the Flemish side of the river, seized the Kowen- 
stein Dyke — which extended on the Brabant 
side from a point opposite Calloo to Starbroeck 
— and began to build a bridge across the river 
itself. This daring project, if successful, 
would completely isolate Antwerp from the sea 
and its Dutch allies and render certain its ulti- 
mate subjection by starvation. 

The bridge was built partly on piles, as far 
out as the water was sufficiently shallow, then 
the intervening gap was spanned by means of 
thirty-two large vessels anchored at both ends 
and lashed together by chains and heavy cables. 
The structure was completed in February, 1585, 
to the amazement of the besieged burghers and 
the great joy of the Prince's army. It would 
seem a small affair to the pontoon bridge build- 
ers of to-day, being two thousand, four hundred 
feet long and twelve feet wide, but at that time 
it was deemed one of the most notable achieve- 
ments ever known. The defenders of the city 
sent huge fireships down the river to destroy 



Three Centuries of Antwerp Printers 421 

the bridge. One of these actually exploded 
against the structure and another off Calloo, de- 
stroying more than eight hundred Spanish sol- 
diers and endangering their intrepid leader 
himself. The bridge was wrecked, but Farnese 
repaired it before the people at Antwerp 
learned of the success of their attempt. 

A tremendous attack was next made on the 
Kowenstein Dyke, with a view to cutting it — a 
feat that could have been done without any 
trouble if the Prince of Orange's counsels had 
been followed a few months earlier. A fleet of 
one hundred and fifty Dutch ships joined in the 
battle from the sea side, while a strong force 
of Flemings, English and Dutch from Antwerp 
attacked the dyke from the land side. After a 
fierce struggle it was cut, the waters rushed 
through and one vessel loaded with provisions 
for the beleaguered city made its way past. 
That night Antwerp rejoiced, but in the dark- 
ness the Prince of Parma made another furious 
assault and finally drove back the allies, cap- 
turing twenty-eight ships of the Dutch fleet and 
filling in the dyke once more. This victory — 
which as a feat of arms was one of the most 
brilliant of the war — sealed the fate of the 
city, which finally capitulated August 17th. So 
important was this success to the Spanish, 



422 The Spell of Flanders 

cause that Isabella, the daughter of King 
Philip, was awakened by her father during the 
night by the tidings, ' ' Antwerp is ours ! " Its 
fall settled approximately the extent of the re- 
gion that was left to the Spanish Crown out of 
the wreck of its former empire in the Low 
Countries. Thenceforth all of the provinces to 
the west and south of Antwerp — the region 
now comprised in the Kingdom of Belgium — 
remained subject to the King of Spain and his 
Austrian successors until the great French 
Revolution. The remaining provinces became 
the Dutch Republic and now form the Kingdom 
of Holland. 

The Spanish Fury and the great siege had 
together well-nigh destroyed the commerce of 
the port, and the lieavj fine imposed by the 
conquerors upon the city for its rebellion com- 
pleted its ruin. Packs of wild dogs are said to 
have roamed unmolested through the outlying 
villages, which stood deserted, while even 
wolves were seen. Grass grew in the once 
crowded streets of the city, and famine added 
to the miseries of its fast declining population. 
It would hardly be conceivable that a quarter 
of a century of hideous misrule could have so 
utterly obliterated the prosperity of this once 
opulent city, but for the fearful object lesson 



Three Centuries of Antwerp Printers 423 

afforded in 1914 that war is still as potent a 
breeder of destruction and despair as it was in 
that dark age. 

Enough, however, of wars and sieges and the 
sack of cities. Antwerp's past includes many 
pleasanter stories as well — stories of progress 
and achievement. To those who are interested 
in the noble art of printing, and the various 
branches of the fine arts that serve as hand- 
maids to the printer, Antwerp possesses one of 
the rarest treasure-houses in the world. This 
is the Museum Plantin-Moretus, for three cen- 
turies the head office and workshop of the great 
printing-house whose name it bears. 

Christopher Plantin, the founder of this fa- 
mous establishment, was by birth a Frenchman 
— having first seen the light of day in the vicin- 
ity of Tours in the year 1514. Fleeing from 
the plague with his father to Lyons, he went 
from there to Orleans, to Paris, and finally to 
Caen in Normandy, where he learned the art of 
printing from Eobert Mace. Here also he met 
Jeanne Ei^dere, who became his wife in 1545 
or 1546. The couple soon went to Paris, where 
Plantin learned the art of bookbinding and of 
making caskets and other articles of elegance 
from leather. In 1549 he came to Antwerp and 
the following year was enrolled as a citizen and 



424 The Spell of Flanders 

also as a member of the famous guild of St. 
Luke with the title of printer. He does not 
appear to have followed this profession, how- 
ever, but speedily gained much renown for his 
exquisite workmanship as a bookbinder and 
casket maker, finding several wealthy patrons 
and protectors — among them Gabriel de 
Cayas, Secretary of Philip II, then the most 
powerful monarch in Christendom. 

In the year 1555, while on his way to deliver 
in person a jewel-case he had just made for 
this client, he met with an adventure that 
changed the course of his career. It was quite 
dark before he had completed his errand, and 
as he made his way along the narrow, ill-lit 
streets of the old city he was set upon by a 
party of drunken revellers who mistook him, 
with the casket under his arm, for a guitar 
player against whom they had some grievance. 
One of the party ran the unfortunate casket- 
maker through the body with his sword, and 
he had barely strength enough to drag himself 
home, more nearly dead than alive. Skilful 
medical and surgical aid finally saved his life, 
but left him unable to do any manual work. 
He therefore gave up his casket-making and re- 
sumed the trade of printer, which he had 
learned at Caen. Instead of a misfortune, as 



Three Centuries of Antwerp Printers 425 

it no doubt seemed at the time, this sword 
thrust proved the turning point in his career, 
for in his new profession he was destined to 
achieve undying fame. 

There were at this time no less than sixty- 
six printing establishments in the Low Coun- 
tries, of which thirteen were at Antwerp, some 
of the latter rivalling the best printers of 
Paris, Basel and Venice in the beauty of their 
productions. Plantin's first book was issued 
the year of his accident, in 1555, and was en- 
titled " La Institutione di una fanciulla nata 
nohilmente." During the next seven years 
his presses turned out a limited number of 
works, but in 1562 his office was raided by order 
of the Eegent, Margaret, the Duchess of 
Parma, and three of his workmen seized and 
condemned to the galleys for a heretical book 
they had printed unknown to him, entitled 
'' Brief ve instruction pour prier." Plantin 
fled to France, and to avoid confiscation he had 
some of his friends, acting as creditors, sell 
and buy in his printing plant. The following 
year — having convinced the Government of 
his orthodoxy — he returned to Antwerp and 
organised a company consisting of himself and 
four partners, including some of his pretended 
creditors. While this arrangement lasted, 



426 The Spell of Flanders 

from 1563 to 1567, more than two hundred 
books were printed, and forty workmen kept 
constantly employed. His work was already 
considered notable for the beauty of its type 
and excellence of the paper used. 

Soon after the partnership was dissolved 
Plantin undertook what was destined to be the 
greatest work of his career, and one of the 
most notable in the histoiy of printing, the 
famous Biblia Regia. This was an edition of 
the Bible in four ancient languages, Latin, 
Hebrew, Greek and Chaldean. The Hebrew 
tyjDe was purchased from a Venetian printer, 
while the last two were cast expressly for this 
book. His friend Cayas interested Philip II 
in the project and that monarch sent the great 
scholar Arias Montanus from Alcala to super- 
vise the work. At the suggestion of Cardinal 
Granville, Syriac was added to the other texts, 
so that, including French, there were six lan- 
guages in all. The first volume of this " Poly- 
glot Bible," as it came to be called, appeared 
in 1569 and the eighth and last in 1573. The 
work proved to be exceedingly costly, and to 
heljD meet the expense the King of Spain ad- 
vanced 21,200 florins, and granted Plantin a 
monopoly for its sale throughout the Spanish 
dominions for the period of twenty years. A 



Three Centuries of Antwerp Printers 427 

similar monopoly was granted by the Pope, the 
Emperor, the King of France and the Eepub- 
lic of Venice. In spite of all this, the book 
brought its printer no profits, but kept him in 
debt for the rest of his life. Pensions prom- 
ised by Philip II to himself and his son-in-law, 
Eaphelingen, were never paid. 

Between the editor of the great Bible and its 
printer a strong friendship sprang up. ' ' This 
man," wrote Arias on one occasion, " is all 
mind and no matter. He neither eats, drinks, 
nor sleeps." And again, ^' Never did I know 
so capable and so kindhearted a man. Every 
day I find something fresh to admire in him, 
but what I admire the most is his humble pa- 
tience towards envious colleagues, whom he in- 
sists on wishing well, though he might do them 
much harm." 

Besides the Biblia Regia Plantin, now at the 
height of his fame, managed to turn out a vast 
quantity of printed matter. High in royal 
favour by reason of this worthy work, he had no 
difficulty in obtaining for himself and his heirs 
a profitable monopoly for printing and sell- 
ing missals and breviaries throughout Spain's 
wide dominions. While the largest printers at 
Paris rarely employed more than six presses, 
Plantin kept twenty-two constantly at work. 



428 The Spell of Flanders 

had agents at Paris and Leyden, and sent a 
member of his family every year to attend the 
fairs at Leipzig and Frankfort. In 1575 his 
office is said to have had seventy-three kinds of 
type, weighing over seventeen tons. 

In 1570 he was appointed by Philip to the 
newly created office of Prototypographer in the 
Netherlands. Masters and men in the print- 
ing trade had to apply to him for certificates as 
to their fitness, while he was also required to 
draw up a list of forbidden books. In this, 
curiously enough, one of the earlier products 
of his own press found a place — a rhyming 
version of the Psalms in French by Clement 
Marot. This office does not seem to have paid 
much salary, if any, or to have given its first 
possessor anything but a lot of worry. 

The Plantin Press was located at various 
places about the city until 1576, when it was 
established on the rue Haute near the Porte 
de St. Jean. Three years later Plantin pur- 
chased from the owner of this property the 
premises occupied by the present museum and 
extending from the rue Haute through to the 
Friday Market, with a large gateway opening 
into the latter. Plantin had been only eight 
months in this new location when the Spanish 
Fury broke out. He was away on a journey 



Three Centuries of Antwerp Printers 429 

liimself, but Ms son-in-law, Moretus, had to 
pay a heavy fine to save the printing-office 
from pillage. The next few years were full of 
trouble and anxiety. For a time Plantin had 
to leave Antwerp, going to Leyden, where he 
met Justus Lipsius and was made printer to 
the University. During the great siege of Ant- 
werp he fled, with many other Catholics, to 
Cologne, where he thought for a time of estab- 
lishing his chief printing-office. After the 
siege he hurried home, but a short time later 
his health began to fail. 

It was in the house on the Friday Market 
that the dying printer gathered his family 
about him. His only son had died in infancy, 
but his five daughters had all lived to be mar- 
ried, three of them to men associated with him 
in the printing office. The eldest, Margaret, 
married Francis Eaphelingen, the chief proof- 
reader and an able linguist; while the second, 
Martina, married Jean JJloretus, the father of 
a long line, of which the eldest sons bore the 
same name so that they came to be distin- 
guished by numbers, the first being Jean More- 
tus I — like a line of kings. This son-in-law 
was Plantin 's business manager. The third 
daughter aided the mother, who ran a linen 
business in the frugal way that many Flemish 



430 The SpeU of Flanders 

housewives have of helping their husbands. 
A fourth, Magdalen, when only a child, cor- 
rected proofs on the Bihlia Regia in five lan- 
guages, and later married her father's Paris 
agent. The fifth married a brother of Jean 
Moretus I, who became a diamond-cutter. 

Plantin had from a very early date adopted 
the motto '' Labori et Constantia," together 
with the emblem of a hand holding a pair of 
open compasses, which may be seen over the 
Friday Market gateway to the museum. This 
emblem, with the motto entwining it in the 
fonn of a scroll, or appearing above, below 
or across it in a hundred variations, is the 
mark by which connoisseurs can distinguish the 
products of the Plantin Press. It must have 
been constantly in the mind of the great 
printer himself, for on his deathbed he com- 
posed the following French couplet, which ex- 
presses and describes his own character better 
than any epitaph could do: 

" Un Labeur courageux muni d'humble Constance 
Resiste a tous assauts par douce Patience." 

On July 1, 1589, this ^' giant among 
printers " breathed his last, and was buried in 
the ambulatory of the cathedral, his friend 
Justus Lipsius writing the inscription for his 



Three Centuries of Antwerp Printers 431 

tombstone. WMle Ms name is not associated 
with the earliest beginnings of the art of print- 
ing, and the products of his press do not there- 
fore command the ahnost fabulous prices paid 
for the rarest productions of some of the first 
printers, Christopher Plantin was not only the 
greatest printer of his age, but one of the 
greatest in the history of the art. Almost 
from the first he knew how to gather about him 
the foremost scholars and artists of his time, 
making his establishment not merely a print- 
ing-office but an institution of learning, a home 
of the fine arts. Arias Montanus, editor of the 
Biblia Regia, aided by a host of the most 
learned churchmen of Europe; Justus Lipsius, 
lecturer before Princes at the Universities of 
Leyden and Louvain; Mercator and Ortelius, 
the geographers, from whom the world learned 
the right way to make maps and atlases ; Cris- 
pin, Van den Broeck, Martin de Vos, and a 
score of the foremost Flemish artists, who were 
employed by Plantin to illustrate his books; 
these and many more no doubt were frequent 
visitors at the printing-house during the life- 
time of its founder. 

These noble traditions were fully maintained 
under his successors. Jean Moretus I ruled 
over the destinies of the house until his death, 



432 The Spell of Flanders 

in 1610, leaving it to his two sons, Jean II and 
Balthazar I. The latter was the greatest of 
the dynasty of printers after Plantin and Jean 
Moretus I. He was a warm friend of Eubens, 
who illustrated many of the publications of the 
house during this period. In the fourth gen- 
eration, represented by Balthazar III, who 
ruled for half a century, from 1646 to 1696, the 
family was ennobled, but after this period the 
house confined its output and commerce to 
missals and breviaries, under the monopoly 
granted by Philip II for the countries under 
the rule of Spain. This business was com- 
pletely destroyed by an edict prohibiting the 
importation of foreign books into the Spanish 
dominions, and in 1800 the printing office 
ceased operations. It resumed activity on a 
small scale once or twice during the nineteenth 
century, but finally closed in 1867, after an ex- 
istence of three hundred and twelve years, and 
in 1876 the last representative of the house, 
Edouard Moretus, sold the entire establish- 
ment, with all its priceless collections and fur- 
nishings, to the City of Antwerp for the sum of 
1,200,000 francs, to be maintained as a museum. 
During the splendid period of activity in the 
first half of the seventeenth century, the throng 
of famous men in the libraries and the cor- 



Three Centuries of Antwerp Printers 433 

rector's room of the old establishnient sur- 
passed that of the days of Plantin and Jean 
Moretns I. Rubens, Van Dyck, Erasmus Quel- 
lin and a host of other artists; Lsevinius Tor- 
rentius, bishop and poet, Kiliaen, the lexico- 
grapher, and scores of other learned men; 
Princes and Dukes innumerable, the patrons 
and protectors of the house — all these and 
many more were constant visitors. To the 
student the museum of to-day recalls these 
great names with a freshness and vividness 
that the ordinary museum fatally lacks, for 
here are countless mementoes of their presence 
in the very proofs and prints they handled and 
corrected, in the letters they wrote, in the 
sketches drawn by the greatest artists of Flan- 
ders and engraved by the foremost engravers 
of the time. 

As a detailed description of the Plantin 
Museum can be found in all the guidebooks, 
while an excellent handbook regarding its 
treasures by Max Eooses, its renowned cura- 
tor, can be purchased for a franc, it would be 
unnecessary as well as tedious to recount them 
here. To those who have but a little time at 
their disposal a liberal honorarium to the at- 
tendant in each room — all of whom are 
garbed in brown with a quaint cap of the same 



434 The Spell of Flanders 

colour, as the printers of the house were wont 
to be dressed, in the great olden days — will 
bring forth a wealth of curious and interesting 
information not to be found in any book, anec- 
dotes of distinguished visitors, bits of lore 
about this or the other treasure, that will make 
the trifling investment well worth while. In 
our case we made our first visit in this way, 
roaming about the splendid old rooms and 
dipping into this case or that at random — like 
butterflies amid a bower of roses. Visitors 
were few that day and we had each attendant 
to ourselves. Later on we made another visit, 
armed with letters of introduction to M. 
Denuce, the learned assistant curator, and 
through his courtesy revisited each room once 
more. A single book — one of the marvellous 
collections of early Bibles — was, according to 
the attendant in that room, made the object of 
an offer of a million francs, or maybe it was a 
million dollars, by a well-known American mil- 
lionaire. The collection in its entirety, if dis- 
persed by auction, would doubtless fetch many 
millions — but it belongs exactly where it is. 
Like the collection of Van Eycks and Memlings 
in Bruges, it would be a world calamity to de- 
spoil it or disperse it. Even the very furnish- 
ings of the chambers up-stairs are associated 



Three Centuries of Antwerp Printers 435 

with the house of Plantin, were used by the 
family for many years; the paintiiigs that 
crowd the walls like an art gallery are for the 
most part by Eubens — portraits of leading 
members of the family. Then there are num- 
berless drawings, prints and engravings that 
represent the work of half of the greatest art- 
ists of the Flemish schoor during the century 
of its greatest splendour — an inimitable, in- 
describable collection ! 

Among other pictorial treasures we saw a 
collection of views of old Antwerp that the 
Professor said he would gladly have spent a 
month in, if only his vacation were a little 
longer. Then there were the books — and 
again words fail to convey an adequate idea of 
the richness and interest of the collection. 
There are nearly a score of early German Bi- 
bles, including a fine copy of Gutenberg's Bi- 
ble latine of 1450; rare German and Italian 
incunabula, choice examples of the work of the 
early Flemish printers, including Les diets 
moraulx des philosophes, printed by Colard 
Manson at Bruges in 1477. There are exam- 
ples of early French, Dutch and Italian print- 
ing; there are Aldines, Estiennes, Elzevirs; 
books from the first printing presses of Switz- 
erland, Spain and Portugal. Truly the histo- 



436 The Spell of Flanders 

rian of the early art of printing might come here 
and complete his work within these charmed 
walls — he would need no other materials ! 
Naturally the collection of books printed by the 
house itself is large, though not complete, and 
there are a great many products of other Ant- 
werp presses. Most valuable of all is the col- 
lection of manuscripts, which includes a huge 
Latin Bible completed in 1402 and ornamented 
with the most marvellous miniatures. Here 
are also several superb Books of Hours and 
many other books with choice miniatures. 

The printing-rooms also deserve all the 
time the tourist can spare. The proofreaders' 
room is a gem, architecturally, artistically, and 
from its historic associations with one of the 
world's finest arts. A few old proof sheets 
are still lying on the high desks, near the 
stained glass windows with their tiny panes. 
The typeroom has still some of the old fonts 
of type and original matrices, while the com- 
posing and pressroom has two presses of the 
sixteenth century, and many quaint and curious 
devices then in use. All these rooms, together 
with the large state rooms, which contain the 
manuscripts and choicest examples of early 
printing, surround a charming courtyard which 
is still kept bright with flowers as it was in the 



Three Centuries of Antwerp Printers 437 

days of the founders of the great house. The 
City of Antwerp is justly proud of this noble 
monument to its great family of great printers, 
which serves to keep green the memory of their 
achievements and of their fine artistic taste 
and skill as no other form of memorial could 
do. 



CHAPTER XX 

ANTWEEP FROM THE TIME OF RUBENS TILL TO-DAY 

?F there is one name more honoured in 
Flanders than any other — more often em- 
ployed as the name of hotels, restau- 
rants or cafes; more frequently on the lips of 
guides, caretakers and sacristans; more con- 
stantly in the mind of every tourist, be he or 
she American, English or Continental — it is 
the name of the greatest of Flemish painters, 
Peter Paul Rubens. No book on Flanders, and 
most assuredly no work touching on Antwerp, 
would be complete without some reference to 
the life and work of this prince among paint- 
ers, yet no task can be more superfluous, since 
nothing can be said that will add in the slight- 
est degree to his fame. He ranks in the his- 
tory of art with the greatest masters in the 
world — with Michael Angelo, Leonardo, Rem- 
brandt, Raphael, Titian and Velasquez — and 
it is probable that more books have been writ- 
ten about him than about Antwerp itself. 
Occasional references have been made in 

438 




THE DESCENT PROM THE CROSS. — RUBENS. 



Antwerp from the Time of Rubens 439 

previous chapters to notable paintings by 
Eubens to be seen in various churches through- 
out Flanders — particularly to " The Miraculous 
Draught of Fishes " at Malines, which is said 
to have been saved from the destruction of that 
city, having been carried away before the first 
of its many bombardments. It is at Antwerp, 
however, that the tourist who desires to study 
the work of Eubens will find him at his best 
and in greatest profusion. And the most fa- 
mous spot enriched by his unrivalled art is 
the cathedral. Here hang his two greatest de- 
votional works, " The Elevation of the Cross " 
and '^ The Descent from the Cross." The 
former was painted in 1610 and gave the young 
artist — he was then only thirty-three — in- 
stant and enduring fame. The companion 
work was completed the following year. Nei- 
ther was originally painted for the cathedral. 
** The Elevation of the Cross," the earlier and 
inferior of the two, was intended to be" the 
altarpiece for the church of Ste. Walburge, 
while the other was painted for the Society of 
Arquebusiers, to adjust a difficulty that had 
arisen over apportioning the cost of a wall sep- 
arating Rubens' house from that of the guild. 
Both, however, are in an ideal location where 
they now are, and form an admirable starting 



440 The Spell of Flanders 

point from which to see, first the cathedral, and 
then the work of Rubens as a whole. 

The Cathedral of Notre Dame is without 
doubt the most beautiful Gothic church in Bel- 
gium, and has thus far happily escaped the 
ravages of the present war — passing un- 
scathed through the furious German bombard- 
ment of the city. Begun in 1352 it was, like 
other churches of its size, centuries in reaching 
completion. The exquisite lace-work in'^stone 
of the north tower was completed during the 
sixteenth century, but was not wholly finished 
when the iconoclasts ravaged the interior of 
the edifice. Originally the church of St. Mary, 
it became the Cathedral of Notre Dame in 1560. 
The nave and transepts were not vaulted until 
1611-16, or the very period when Rubens was 
painting the famous pictures that now hang in 
the south transept. Work on the south tower 
was discontinued in 1474, which seems a pity, 
as its completion would have made the cathe- 
dral one of the most perfect specimens of 
Gothic architecture in the world. As it is, the 
single tower dominates the old part of the city 
and is a familiar feature of its sky line. The 
chimes of the cathedral are famous, and are 
often played by Jef Denyn of Malines. There 
are forty bells of various sizes, of which the 



Antwerp from the Time of Rubens 441 

greatest was named Charles V, and requires 
the strength of nineteen men to swing it. This 
bell was founded some eight years before the 
young Duke Charles made his joyous entry 
into Antwerp, and no doubt rang lustily on that 
occasion. 

The interior of the cathedral is very vast, 
comprising six aisles, but is too well known to 
require description. Among the numerous 
paintings with which the chapels are adorned 
is one, a '' Descent from the Cross," by Adam 
Van Noort, the teacher of Jordaens, and said 
to be the first who taught Eubens how to handle 
a brush. In the second chapel on the south 
is an interesting " Resurrection " by Rubens, 
which was painted in 1612 for the tomb of his 
friend Moretus, of the famous printing-house 
of Plantin. The fourth chapel on the same 
side contains the tomb of Christopher Plantin, 
with an inscription by his colleague and friend, 
Justus Lipsius, and several family portraits. 
The visitor will find many other points of in- 
terest in this vast church, which is a veritable 
museum of art, architecture, history and hu- 
man progress. The high altarpiece is another 
famous Eubens, an ' ' Assumption ' ' — a sub- 
ject which he painted no less than ten times. 
There are half a dozen other notable paintings 



442 The Spell of Flanders 

by other artists, but the majority are of minor 
artistic importance. The rich Gothic choir 
stalls, however, are worth more than a passing 
glance, for the wood-carvings here are very 
fine, although modem — having been begun in 
1840, and completed forty years later. The 
elaborately carved pulpit was made in the 
eighteenth century by the sculptor Michel Ver- 
voort, and was intended for the Abbey of St. 
Bernard. 

After the completion of the two great mas- 
terpieces now in the cathedral Rubens was by 
universal acclaim acknowledged to be the fore- 
most painter in Flanders and of his time. His 
studio was besieged by artists desirous of be- 
coming the pupils of the brilliant master. As 
early as 1611 he wrote that he had already re- 
fused more than a hundred applicants. In 
1614 he painted *' The Conversion of St. 
Bavon," now in the cathedral of St. Bavon at 
Ghent; in 1617 '' The Adoration of the Magi " 
in the church of St. John at Malines, and * ' The 
Last Judgment," now in the Pinacothek of 
Munich; in 1618 " The Miraculous Draught of 
Fishes " at Malines; in 1619 '' The Last Com- 
munion of St. Francis," now in the museum 
at Antwerp, and, according to Fromentin, his 
greatest masterpiece; in 1620 the '' Coup de 




COUP DE LANCE. RUBENS. 



Antwerp from the Time of Rubens 443 

Lance," now at the museum of Antwerp, and 
his finest work according to some other author- 
ities. In 1622-23 he produced the twenty-four 
superb paintings of the Galerie des Medicis. 
The ''Lion Hunt," and the ''Battle of the 
Amazons," now in the Pinacothek at Munich, 
belong to this decade, together with the six 
paintings of the history of Decius in the Liech- 
tenstein Gallery, and thirty-nine pictures for 
the church of the Jesuits, of which all but three 
were destroyed at the burning of the church 
in 1718. The three are in the museum of 
Vienna. 

Here, in the space of a little over ten years, 
were nearly a hundred masterpieces — works 
of such magnitude that two or three would 
have sufficed to immortalise any other painter. 
Yet in addition to these labours he designed 
for the tapestry-workers of Brussels the life 
of Achilles in eight parts, the history of Con- 
stantine in twelve, and many other cartoons of 
extraordinary merit. His friend, Moretus, in 
accordance with the high traditions of the 
house of Plantin, came to him for designs for 
many books, and he drew borders, designs, title- 
pages and vignettes, and illustrated himself a 
book on cameos. He even painted triumphal 
arches and cars for ceremonial processions, and 



444 The Spell of Banders 

these works in liis hands acquired a permanence 
of artistic value that is in itself one of the high- 
est tributes to his genius. The fine portraits of 
Albert and Isabella, now in the museum at 
Brussels, were painted for a triumphal arch in 
the Place de Meir — yet they are masterpieces 
of portraiture, perfect and splendid do\Yn to 
the minutest detail! 

According to a report made in 1879, by the 
Commission Anversoise chargee de reunir 
Vouevre de Rubens, en gravures ou en photo- 
graphies, there are altogether no less than two 
thousand, tw6 hundred and thirty-five pictures 
and sketches by this amazingly prolific artist, 
and four hundred and eighty-four designs — 
a total of two thousand, seven hundred and 
nineteen known works. At Antwerp alone 
there are upwards of one hundred pictures, of 
which more than a score are masterpieces of 
world-wide renown and incalculable value. 
Besides the great trio at the cathedral, and 
the family portraits in the Plantin Museum, 
the museum catalogues more than thirty sub- 
jects of which the " Spear Thrust " {Coup de 
Lance), ''Adoration of the Magi or Wise 
Men," the '' Last Communion of Saint Fran- 
cis," the '' Christ on the Straw " {a la Paille), 
" The Prodigal Son," and '' Virgin Instructed 



Antwerp from the Time of Rubens 445 

by Saint Anne " are among the more notable. 
Both here and at the Plantin Museum the stu- 
dent of Eubens can find many interesting 
prints, sketches and minor examples of the 
great master's work. At the museum also is 
the interesting Holy Family known as ''La 
Vierge au Perroquet " (Virgin with the Par- 
rot) which was presented by Eubens to the 
Guild of St. Luke when he was elected Presi- 
dent of that famous organisation in 1631. 
Near the Place de Meir is the house of Eubens, 
largely a replica of the original built in the 
eighteenth century — few vestiges of the build- 
ing in which the great painter held his almost 
royal court remaining. It is worth a visit, but 
is far inferior to the Plantin Museum as a 
memorial and in the interest and importance of 
its contents. 

On his death in 1640 — ' ' twenty years too 
early " — the artist was buried in the church of 
St. Jacques, an edifice rivalling the cathedral 
in size and interest. It was the burial-place 
of many of the wealthiest families in Antwerp. 
The Eubens chapel is in the ambulatory, behind 
the high altar, and contains a picture of the 
' ' Holy Family ' ' which, according to the crit- 
ics, is one of the worst of the artist's pictures. 
Several of the faces are those of his own fam- 



446 The Spell of Flanders 

ily, which probably was the reason why his 
widow placed it here. 

Besides the paintings in various churches 
and museums in Flanders there are twenty- 
three by Eubens in the museum at Brussels, 
seventy-seven in the Pinacothek at Munich, 
ninety at Vienna, sixty-six at Madrid, fifty- 
four in the Hermitage at St. Petersburg and 
the same number in the Louvre at Paris, six- 
teen at Dresden, thirty-one at London, while a 
considerable number can be seen in various 
public and private art collections in the United 
States. '' He is everywhere," writes Prof. 
Wauters with justifiable enthusiasm, *' and 
everywhere triumphant. No matter what pic- 
tures surround him, the effect is invariable; 
those which resemble his own are eclipsed, 
those that would oppose him are silenced; 
wherever he is he makes you feel his presence, 
he stands alone, and at all times occupies the 
first place. . . . He has painted everything — 
fable, mythology, history, allegory, portraits, 
animals, flowers, landscapes — and always in 
a masterly way. ... Is he perfect? No one 
is. Has he faults? Assuredly. He is some- 
times reproached with having neither the out- 
line of Raphael, the depth of Leonardo da 
Vinci, the largeness of Titian, the naturalness 



Antwerp from the Time of Rubens 447 

of Velasquez, nor the chiaroscuro of Eem- 
brandt. But he has the outline, the depth, the 
largeness, the naturalness and the chiaroscuro 
of Eubens; is not that enough? " 

To appreciate fully the magnitude of this 
greatest of all Flemings it is necessary to re- 
call, for a moment, the times in which he lived. 
Fourteen years after the capture of Antwerp 
by the Prince of Parma, Philip II determined 
— when on his deathbed — to give the Spanish 
Netherlands partial independence by transfer- 
ring the sovereignty over the loyal provinces 
possessed by the Crown of Spain to his daugh- 
ter Isabella and her husband, the Archduke 
Albert. The arrival of the Archdukes, as they 
were called, in 1599, was made the occasion of 
a joyous entry that, on the whole, was justified 
by their Government — which was a great im- 
provement over anything that had preceded it 
since the days of the unspeakable Alva. To be 
sure, the war with the States of Holland still 
dragged on, and the Scheldt was closed. But 
the burghers wisely sought to replace the loss 
of their sea trade by encouraging industries. 
Silk and satin manufactures during the seven- 
teenth and eighteenth centuries gave employ- 
ment to upwards of twelve thousand hands, and 
diamond-cutting became an industry of grow- 



448 The Spell of Flanders 

ing importance. While the commercial stag- 
nation was severely felt, the city did not de- 
cline like Bruges, but held much of its popu- 
lation and recovered some of its former wealth. 
The Archdukes, who were relieved of the 
paralysing necessity of referring every impor- 
tant act to Madrid, did their best to heal the 
terrible wounds of the early years of the war 
and restore some degree of tranquillity and 
prosperity to their dominions. Eeligious per- 
secutions ceased. Eager to win the Jove of 
their subjects, the Archdukes welcomed Rubens 
to Antwerp when he returned to his native city 
on the death of his mother in 1608, and in order 
to keep him from returning to Italy made him 
their court painter in 1609. During the re- 
mainder of his lifetime their favour never 
ceased, and on many occasions Rubens was 
sent as a special ambassador of the Govern- 
ment on important diplomatic missions. His 
courtly manners and stately appearance fa- 
voured him, as well as his now tremendous ar- 
tistic reputation. He was knighted by Charles 
I, while on a visit to England, and created a 
Master of Arts by the University of Cam- 
bridge. Among his friends he numbered — 
besides his royal patrons, Moretus, the printer, 
and Rockox, the burgomaster — many of the 




PETER PAUL RUBENS. 



Antwerp from the Time of Rubens 449 

most famous scholars and statesmen of his 
time. He was interested in literature and 
science as well as art in all its branches and 
wrote a vast number of letters on an astound- 
ing variety of subjects — one calculation places 
the total number at eight thousand! 

As if his own achievements were not enough, 
the genius of Eubens was the torch that set 
aflame a renaissance of Flemish painting that 
made the later Flemish school, which justly 
bears his name, the peer of any in the long his- 
tory of art. Of his many pupils the greatest 
is Anthony Van Dyck, who was born at Ant- 
werp in 1599 and entered the studio of the mas- 
ter at the age of fifteen. In the little church 
of Saventhem, not far from Brussels, is the 
most famous of Van Dyck's early paintings 
which shows his precocious talent. Eubens 
had urged his promising pupil to visit Italy, 
and not only gave him a letter of intro- 
duction but provided funds for the long jour- 
ney. The youth set forth, but in a little vil- 
lage on the way there happened to be a ker- 
messe into the merriment of which he entered 
heartily. Among others with whom he danced 
was a beautiful country girl with whom the 
artist fell so deeply in love that he was unable 
to proceed any further, but devoted himself for 



450 The Spell of Flanders 

days to courting lier. Meanwhile his funds ran 
out, and he bethought himself with horror, 
when it was too late, that this meant the aban- 
donment of the trip to Italy. In his extremity 
he applied to the parish priest and otfered to 
paint an altarpiece for the village church on 
very moderate terms. It is related that the 
priest smiled indulgently at the youth's pre- 
tensions that he was a historical painter and 
put him off, saying that there were no funds. 
Van Dyck, however, persisted, and offered to 
paint the picture if provided only with the can- 
vas, and leave the matter of the price to the 
cure's liberality. 

These terms could hardly be refused, and the 
young artist set to work with such energy that 
in a few weeks the picture was finished. The 
priest admired the work greatly, particularly 
the beautiful figure of the Saint — the subject 
selected having been Saint Martin dividing his 
Cloak among the Beggars — and sent for a con- 
noisseur from Brussels to decide if he should 
keep the picture. The verdict was favourable, 
and the price paid to the artist enabled him to 
proceed on his journey to Italy. It is not re- 
ported whether the future painter of kings and 
courtiers ever returned to visit his fair inam- 
orata of the kermesse, but this pretty story, 



Antwerp from the Time of Rubens 451 

which is told in a rare little book, " Sketches 
of Flemish Painters," published at The Hague 
in 1642, was written by a contemporary, and 
may quite possibly have been true. At any 
rate, there is the painting itself to prove it. 

On his return to Antwerp in 1625 Van Dyck 
left behind him in Italy more than a hundred 
paintings, in itself a prodigious achievement. 
He now began to work in his native city with 
a rapidity and perfection resembling his mas- 
ter's and produced the altarpieces that are 
among the master works of Flemish churches. 
Here also he painted a marvellous galaxy of 
portraits of the great artists of his time and 
of the Flemish, French and Spanish nobility. 
His marvellous etchings also belong to this pe- 
riod, so that Antwerp is associated with much 
of his finest work in two great branches of 
art. In 1632 the artist went to London, which 
he had visited on one or two previous occasions, 
and became painter to the court of Charles I. 
Here he remained for the rest of his lifetime, 
painting more than three hundred and fifty 
pictures portraying the royal family and no- 
bility of England. He died in 1641, or only a 
year after his master, leaving a record of 
varied achievement comprising more than one 
thousand, five hundred works. The museum 



452 The Spell of Flanders 

at Antwerp possesses twelve of his paintings, 
of which one of the most interesting is the 
" Christ on the Cross " painted for the Domin- 
ican nuns in recognition of the care and ten- 
derness with which they had nursed his father 
during the old man's last illness. The cata- 
logue of the museum somewhat conceals the 
artist's name under the Flemish form, Antoon 
Van Dijck, which hardly suggests the brilliant 
and debonnaire Sir Anthony of Whitehall and 
the beauties of England under Charles the 
First. There are sixty-seven works by this 
master in Vienna, forty-one at Munich, thirty- 
eight at St. Petersburg, twenty-four at the 
Louvre, twenty-one in Madrid and nineteen in 
Dresden, but England possesses the largest col- 
lections of his productions, most of those he 
painted at London still remaining in the public 
and private galleries of that country. 

It would be a tedious task to recount the 
names and works of the throng of lesser artists 
who studied at the feet of Eubens and Van 
Dyck during the fruitful years when those mas- 
ters were giving their talents to the world with 
such amazing prodigality. Erasmus Quellin 
I, the Elder, was one of the first — a sculptor 
who founded a family of notable sculptors and 
painters who lived and gained renown at Ant- 



Antwerp from the Time of Rubens 453 

werp for more tlian a century. Faid'herbe, 
whose work abounds at Malines, was another 
sculptor of the highest rank who was a direct 
pupil of Eubens; Dusquesnoy, Grupello and 
Verbrugghen were renowned sculptors who 
owed much to his influence. 

After Eubens and Van Dyck the greatest 
name in the Flemish school of this brilliant 
period was that of Jacob Jordaens, who learned 
his art under Rubens' old master, Adam Van 
Noort, and married his teacher's beautiful 
daughter Catherine, who posed for many of his 
pictures. The numerous family gatherings de- 
picted by this master are famous, one of the 
most characteristic of them all being the well- 
known *' As the Old Birds Sing the Young 
Birds Pipe " in the Antwerp museum. His 
satyrs and peasants and rural scenes are 
among the finest products of the Flemish 
school. The religious pictures of Gaspard de 
Grayer and Gerard Zeghers, the portraits of 
Cornelius de Vos, and the animal pictures of 
Francis Snyders and John Fyts all belong to 
this epoch when Antwerp, although sinking in 
commercial and political importance, was mak- 
ing herself for all time one of the art capitals 
of the world. 

In pictures of homely Flemish life David 



454 The Spell of Flanders 

Teniers, who belongs to the next generation of 
Antwerp artists, achieved a fame that places 
him in a sense in a class by himself, for none 
of the earlier masters surpassed him in his par- 
ticular field. He, too, was prolific — one cata- 
logTie enumerating no less than six hundred and 
eighty-five of his works. Of the same genre 
is the work of Adrian Brauwer, whose early 
death prevented him from leaving so great a 
legacy to posterity. Besides these masters of 
the first rank, Antwerp boasts an almost in- 
numerable throng of minor artists — pupils of 
Eubens, Van Dyck and their successors — 
much of whose work is of excellent merit. Any 
half-dozen of these would have rendered an- 
other city notable in the history of art, but 
here their achievements are lost as are the he- 
roic deeds of the private soldiers in a great 
army. The mind cannot retain so many names, 
cannot appraise and classify so bewildering a 
mass of productions. 

For this reason the tourist who is a philoso- 
pher will not regard too seriously the dicta of 
the learned as to which of these lesser paint- 
ings is or is not of the first rank in the order 
of merit. What of it if the guidebook does 
not indicate by its little stars that this is a pic- 
ture for one to go into raptures over, if the 



Antwerp from the Time of Rubens 455 

sacristan or guide passes it coldly by? If it 
appeals to us by all means let us pause and 
admire it, let us study it, find out about it, 
learn something of its history and that of the 
unknown artist who painted it. Indeed, if on 
such closer inspection it still appeals to us, let 
us buy it if we can — but at all events let us en- 
joy it to the utmost, for of such joys Flanders 
is full. In out of the way comers everywhere 
one can find genre pictures like those of Tenier, 
brilliantly coloured groups suggestive of Eu- 
bens, scenes of bucolic feasting in imitation of 
Jordaens. And here and there, who knows, 
perhaps one may yet discover an original by 
one of these greater artists or their rare prede- 
cessors, and retire on the proceeds! Who 
knows ? 

The visitor to the Eoyal Museum of Fine Arts 
at Antwerp should not leave without devoting 
at least a day to the modern paintings. To an 
American, accustomed to museums where long 
walls filled with dreary mediocrities are illu- 
minated only at rare intervals with something, 
altogether fine and satisfactory, these modern 
galleries are a treat. Picture after picture, 
room after room — all are beautiful and 
worthy, many are splendid. The collection of 
modern paintings is not large as European gal- 



456 The Spell of Flanders 

leries go, some five hundred and fifty alto- 
gether, but the general average of quality is 
exceptionally high — much superior in this re- 
spect it seemed to us than the far larger col- 
lection at Brussels, though it is not so regarded 
by the critics. The interiors of Henri de 
Braekeleer, and his charming Nursery Garden, 
for example, what could be finer? The '' An- 
cient Fishmarket " at Antwerp by Frans Bos- 
suet, a native of Ypres; the "Lull before the 
Storm," by P. J. Clays, of Bruges, one of 
whose paintings is in the Metropolitan Museum 
at New York — all these are notable. So are 
the historical pictures of Baron Leys, Guffens, 
Louis Gallait and Charles Verlat — but the list 
is too long. These pictures are not to be de- 
scribed, they must be seen. Individually the 
savants may quarrel as to their merits, but, 
taking them all together, these paintings — for 
the most part by Flemish artists — prove that 
the great traditions of Rubens and Van Dyck, 
Jordaens and Teniers, have not been forgotten 
in their native land and that modern Flemish 
art is a worthy successor to the greatness of 
the past. 

The lover of the beautiful has yet another 
treat in store for him when he visits the famous 
old Hotel de Ville. It had hardly been com- 



■"^-t^\ 




Antwerp from the Time of Rubens 457 

pleted, in 1565, by Cornells de Vriendt when it 
was partially destroyed during the Spanish 
Fury. Eebuilt a few years later in its present 
form, it contains some of the most beautiful 
rooms to be seen in all Europe. The vestibule 
and grand staircase are richly decorated with 
coloured marble, while imposing frescoes de- 
pict the zenith of Antwerp's commercial and 
artistic splendour. The great reception-room 
is decorated with four superb historical fres- 
coes by Baron Leys, while the exquisite Salle 
des Mariages is completely surrounded with 
allegorical paintings portraying the history of 
the marriage ceremony by Lagye, a pupil of 
Leys. In the rooms of this edifice the history 
of the famous old city lives again, while in its 
splendid fireplaces and minor decorations one 
can see examples of every branch of Flemish 
art. 

While the Hotel de Ville is most gratifying 
to the eye and the imagination, it is not, how- 
ever, intimately associated with many impor- 
tant events in the history of the city. Albert 
and Isabella, while they ruled, were virtually 
independent sovereigns, but on the death of 
Albert without issue, in 1621, the country re- 
verted to Spain. Thereafter, for more than 
two centuries, the city, together with Flanders, 



458 The Spell of Flanders 

Brabant and the other loyal provinces of the 
Netherlands, became the football of European 
politics, and Belgium received its sinister name 
of " the cockpit of Europe." The people, as 
a whole, took little interest in the great wars of 
the Spanish and of the Austrian Successions 
that were fought largely to decide who should 
rule over them, since there seemed no likeli- 
hood of their in any event ever being able again 
to rule over themselves. Marlborough, after 
his great victory at Ramillies, occupied the city 
with English troops in 1706, and in 1715 the 
Hotel de Ville was the scene of the signing of 
the treaty that ended the war. By this treaty 
the Spanish Netherlands were ceded to Austria, 
becoming subject to the Emperor Charles VI. 
Thirty years later the French victory at Fonte- 
noy made them masters of the city, and Louis 
XV had a joyous entry the following year. 
Two years later, in 1748, the country was 
handed back to Austria and Charles made a 
joyous entry in turn, the people apparently 
welcoming any change of government with com- 
plete impartiality. The Empress Maria The- 
resa was popular in her Netherlands domin- 
ions, but her son Joseph II made Austrian 
rule so odious that there was a revolt, and in 
1790 Antwerp was taken by the patriot army. 



Antwerp from the Time of Rubens 459 

to the immense joy of its citizens. The Ans- 
trians soon crushed the revolution and reoc- 
cupied the city, but the great victory of the 
French republicans, nnder Dumouriez, at 
Jemappes destroyed the power of Austria in 
the Netherlands, and in 1792 the army of the 
sans-culottes entered Antwerp. The defeat of 
Dumouriez at Neerwinden resulted in the Im- 
perial forces again occupying the city in 1793, 
but the French victory at Fleurus the follow- 
ing year turned the tables again and Antwerp 
once more became subject to the republic. 

All these years the Scheldt had been firmly 
closed, J.oseph II having made a feeble attempt 
to free the river, which had collapsed at the 
first shot from the Dutch forts. In 1795 the 
free navigation of the river was decreed by the 
French, and a ship came up and was received 
in state by the delighted burghers. It is stated 
that the value of real estate in the city in- 
creased tenfold in consequence of this decree. 
On the other hand, the sans-culottes very 
nearly rivalled the image-breakers in the vig- 
our with which they destroyed the city's relig- 
ious monuments. The cathedral and churches 
were despoiled, and it was even proposed 
to tear down the cathedral, because (they said), 
** it cannot be reckoned a nionument of any 



460 The Spell of Flanders 

value except for the lead, iron, copper and tim- 
ber it contains." Fortunately Napoleon seized 
the reins of power at Paris at about this time, 
and put an end to such nonsense. In 1803 the 
First Consul visited Antwerp, which — as he 
afterwards said — was '' like a loaded pistol 
pointed at the heart of England." Filled with 
this idea, he systematically sought to revive 
the commerce of the port and erected great 
docks there for his war vessels, portions of 
which still remain. In 1814, after the Em- 
peror's defeat and abdication, Antwerp, under 
Gen. Camot, was the last French stronghold in 
the Netherlands to yield. 

After the second defeat of Napoleon at 
Waterloo Antwerp succeeded in recovering 
most of the paintings that had been carried 
away to France by the republicans in 1794. 
The treaty that followed the last Napoleonic 
war gave all of what is at present Belgium to 
the King of Holland, William I, who favoured 
Antwerp in many ways. As the Scheldt still 
remained free the commerce of the port was 
considerable and prosperity seemed to be re- 
turning. In 1830 began the revolution that re- 
sulted in the independence of Belgium. One 
of its first events was the bombardment of the 
city of Antwerp by the Dutch troops holding 



Antwerp from the Time of Rubens 461 

the citadel. The following year Prince Leo- 
pold of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was elected by the 
National Congress as King of the Belgians 
Tinder the title of Leopold I. The war with 
Holland was not yet over, however, and in 1832 
the English, French and Belgian troops began 
a siege of the citadel at Antwerp, which was 
still in the hands of the Dutch. The fortress 
had one hundred and forty-three guns, and the 
besiegers two hundred and twenty-three, and 
it is stated that sixty- three thousand projec- 
tiles were fired against it. The fortress was a 
mass of ruins before its sturdy defenders 
capitulated. 

From 1832 until 1914 Antwerp and the 
liberty-loving Flemings of ancient Flanders 
remained free, happy and increasingly pros- 
perous under the wise and moderate rule of 
their chosen Kings. Leopold I reigned until 
his death in 1865, and proved to be one of the 
wisest monarchs in history. For Antwerp his 
greatest achievement was the final freeing of 
the Eiver Scheldt in 1863, after more than ten 
years of diplomatic negotiations, from the tolls 
which the Dutch had insisted in levying since 
1839. Under his successor, Leopold II, one of 
the most efficient chief executives it was pos- 
sible for a nation to have, the fine Belgian pub- 



462 The Spell of Flanders 

e 

lie service system was developed and the pros- 
perity of its cities and citizens promoted in 
every practical way. In the two decades fol- 
lowing the freeing of the Scheldt the commerce 
of the port of Antwerp increased six-fold> 
while that of its rivals, London and Liverpool, 
doubled and that of Hamburg and Eotterdam 
tripled. Since then the business of the port 
has advanced even faster, and the imposing 
modem business buildings that now line the 
Place de Meir, one of the handsomest commer- 
cial streets in the world, afford abundant tes- 
timony to its prosperity and wealth — as do 
the fine residences of its merchants to be seen 
in drives through the outskirts of the city. 
Under Albert I the wise policies of his prede- 
cessors were continued, and the little country 
was enjoying peace and contentment such as 
never came to it during the centuries of for- 
eign oppression and tyranny that began with 
the acquisition of Flanders and Brabant by the 
Dukes of Burgundy. It is the greatest moral 
issue in this war whether Belgium, after being 
free for less than eighty-five years, shall once 
more pass into the hands of a foreign power. 
Its people have demonstrated conclusively that 
under the limited monarchy they have chosen 
they are capable of governing themselves far 



Antwerp from the Time of R ubens 463 

better than the best of their self-appointed mas- 
ters ever did in the bad old days that, they had 
hoped, had forever passed away. 




CHAPTER XXI 

WHERE MODERN FLANDERS SHINES OSTENDE 

AND '' LA PLAGE " 

;UR last stopping place in Flanders was 
the one that many tourists visit first, the 
gay watering place of Ostende. Here a 
little fleet of fast Channel steamers convey the 
traveller to Dover in four or five hours, while 
an excellent service of through express trains 
connect the Dover end of the water route with 
London, and the Ostende end with Brussels, 
Berlin and half the capitals of Europe. Our 
stay in Flanders, however, was drawing to a 
close, and we were headed for Liverpool, where 
the new Aquitania was waiting to bear us 
home. 

The tourist who expects in Ostende to find 
much that is reminiscent of the Flanders of 
the sixteenth century, of which so much has 
been said in the other chapters of this book, 
will be disappointed. To be sure, it is not a 
young city, being mentioned in the chronicles 
of Flanders as far back as the eleventh century. 

464 



Where Modern Flanders Shines 465 

In the Eighty Years' War between Spain and 
her revolted Dutch colonies Ostende was for a 
long time held by the Dutch, who beat off two 
severe attacks by the Spaniards in 1583 and 
1586, the former led by the all but invincible 
Farnese, Prince of Parma. In the year 1600 
the Battle of the Dunes took place at Nieuport, 
in which the troops of the Archduke Albert 
were defeated by a Dutch army under Maurice, 
Prince of Nassau. This victory, while it gave 
great encouragement to the enemies of Spain 
by demonstrating that the renowned Spanish 
soldiers were not invincible, was otherwise bar- 
ren of results, and in 1601 the Archdukes de- 
termined to besiege Ostende, which was the 
last stronghold of the Dutch in Flanders. 

Prior to the war with Philip II Ostende had 
been little more than an obscure fishing-village^ 
but since it had been fortified by the Dutch, 
and had so successfully maintained itself 
against all assaults, the place was fast becom- 
ing a '' thorn in the foot " to the government 
of the Archdukes. Queen Elizabeth, whose de- 
feats of Philip's armadas had made England 
mistress of the seas, was determined that Spain 
should not regain so important a strategic base, 
and had kept an English garrison there under 
aii English commander. Since Albert's acces- 



466 The Spell of Flanders 

sion the town had been greatly strengthened 
by new ramparts, bastions and fortifications of 
every type then known in the engineering art 
of warfare. To protect Flanders against this 
hostile fortress in its very midst the Arch- 
dukes were obliged to erect eighteen forts 
around Ostende and keep them constantly gar- 
risoned and supplied. This cost ninety thou- 
sand crowns a month and kept the rich prov- 
ince in a state of perpetual war. Towns in the 
vicinity were compelled to pay tribute in order 
to escape pillage, and commerce — then, as al- 
ways, dependent upon peace — languished. 

The Estates of Flanders under these direful 
conditions offered the Archdukes three hundred 
thousand florins a month as long as the siege 
to rid them of this menacing stronghold might 
last, and three hundred thousand florins addi- 
tional as a bonus to be paid in instalments — 
a third when the city was invested, a third when 
a breach was made in the fortifications, and the 
balance when the place was taken. These 
terms are curiously similar to those employed 
in drawing building loans at the present day 
and show that the Flemings had lost none of 
their ancient caution. 

On July 5th, 1601, the Archduke Albert ar- 
rived before Ostende and formally began its 



Where Modern Flanders Shines 467 

investment. The Infanta Isabella came with 
him, and often shared camp life with her hus- 
band during the weary months that followed. 
The siege from the very first developed into a 
contest of engineers and military strategists on 
the taking and the defence of fortified places 
the hke of whicli had never before been known 
in Europe. In fact nearly all Europe was di- 
rectly engaged in the conflict. On the Arch- 
dukes' side were Spaniards, Italians and Wal- 
loons; on the ramparts of the defenders were 
lined up side by side English, Dutch, French, 
German and Scotch forces. The fortress was 
commanded by Sir Francis Vere. The opera- 
tions of the siege consisted of mining and 
counter-mining, the erection and destruction of 
batteries, storming of outlying works — all the 
devices of attack and defence known to the mil- 
itary science of the day. Never before had the 
world seen such cannons and engines of de- 
struction. The siege became Homeric, epic, a 
seventeenth-century Siege of Troy. 

The great difficulty of the besiegers was 
their inability to cut off the town from receiv- 
ing new provisions and supplies, and a con- 
stant stream of reinforcements, by sea. The 
Dutch, English and French ships came and 
went almost at will. All the summer and fall 



468 The Spell of Flanders 

of 1601 the siege dragged on, and through the 
cold winter that followed. In 1602 Sir Fran- 
cis Vere and a large part of the garrison were 
relieved and a new commander and garrison 
installed without the Archdukes being able to 
prevent the manoeuvre. In 1603 Ambrose, the 
Marquis Spinola, a young scion of a rich Gen- 
oese family, offered to take charge of the siege 
of Ostende and to capture the city. As the 
Archduke Albert had made a complete failure 
of the job, and was unpopular besides among 
his troops, whom he had not been able to pay 
with any regularity, he welcomed this offer and 
Spinola assumed the command. His wealth 
enabled him to pay and feed his soldiers, while 
his youth and ambition made him a wary and 
energetic commander. Day and night he took 
part in person in supervising the mines, as- 
saults, trenches and erection of new positions. 
Gradually, under his vigorous leadership, the 
besiegers began to burrow their way into the 
town. Maurice of Nassau, unable to pierce 
Spinola 's network of entrenchments around 
the town created a diversion by besieging and 
capturing Sluys. In spite of this, however, 
Spinola clung doggedly to his prey and on Sep- 
tember 13th, 1603, Sand Hill, after a resistance 
of three years, was captured. Seven days 



Where Modern Flanders Shines 469 

later the Governor, who now controlled nothing 
but the heart of the town, capitulated and on 
September 22nd, the garrison marched out with 
all the honours of war. Hardly a soul of the 
former population of Ostende remained at the 
time of its capture, and it is said that the Arch- 
duchess Isabella *^ wept at the sight of the 
mound of earth, all that remained of the city 
which she had been so anxious to capture." 
It was estimated that the place, which had been 
little more than a village, cost the besiegers 
one hundred thousand lives and the defenders 
sixty thousand. The siege had lasted three 
years, two months and seventeen days, but the 
'^ thorn " had at last been extracted. 

For several years after this Ostende re- 
mained a city without inhabitants, the Arch- 
dukes rebuilding the place but population com- 
ing to it but slowly. In 1722 The East and 
West India Company of the Austrian Nether- 
lands was founded at Ostende, chiefly by Ant- 
werp capitalists and merchants, who were 
deeply interested in the enterprise. Factories 
were established in India, but the Emperor 
Charles VI dissolved the company in 1731 in 
order to secure English and Dutch support for 
his Pragmatic Sanction. The next century was 
one of stagnation, the town reverting to a fish- 



470 The Spell of Flanders 

ing-place, but almost at the moment of Belgian 
independence — or from about 1830 — it began 
to be renowned as a watering-place. It owes 
much of its present prosperity to Leopold II, 
who made it a place of royal residence during 
the summer, and whose royal palace still looks 
down upon the Digue not far from the race- 
track. The coming of the cross-channel steam- 
ers still further stimulated its growth, and at 
present it is one of the most beautiful and pic- 
turesque of all the Flemish cities. 

Our visit was unfortunate — as we regret- 
fully told one another at the time — in that it 
came in July, before the season had really 
opened. August is the time to come, the 
waiters and hotel porters all assured us, for 
then the Grand Dukes come from Eussia, the 
long special trains from Germany roll in one 
after another loaded to capacity, the Channel 
steamers arrive three times a day with decks 
black with English tourists, and Ostende's 
many kinds of gaiety are in full swing. How- 
ever, the opening of the August season in 
1914 was conducted under circumstances that 
made us rather glad we were there in July. 
The Germans came, to be sure, but the gaiety 
departed. 

No one in Ostende foresaw a bit of the ter- 



Where Modern Flanders Shines 471 

rible future when we were there in July, The 
long curving beach was crowded with people, 
little people for the most part, and most of the 
queer little beach-houses — summer cottages 
on wheels — were gradually getting rented. 
The beach is splendidly broad and smooth, but 
the slope seaward is so slight that at low tide 
one must needs go very far out to get into the 
water at all. This did not seem to trouble any- 
body very much, for we saw few who ever went 
near the water, most of the pleasure-seekers 
staying on the warm, dry sand up near the big 
sloping sea wall of the Digue. For families 
with small children the little summer-houses 
seemed rather attractive, as papa and mamma 
could sit within, sheltered from sun or rain, 
while the youngsters rollicked all day long in 
the deep sand. 

The Digue just mentioned is a high artificial 
seawall or embankment, faced with sloping 
stone on the sea side and surmounted by a 
broad boulevard — the Esplanade. It slopes 
gradually on the landward side, one row of 
stately hotels and lodging-houses facing di- 
rectly on the Esplanade, while on the side 
streets the buildings drop each below the other 
until they reach the level of the town, which is 
some forty or fifty feet lower than the summit 



472 The Spell of Flanders 

of the embankment. Here tlie fashionable 
crowds promenade at the proper times, while 
the unfashionable promenade all day long and 
far into the night. Even in July the sight is a 
most fascinating one, and the Bohemianism of 
the crowd and its diversity of national types 
most interesting. Here, as everywhere in Bel- 
gium, the cafes and hotels place their tables 
and chairs far out into the roadway, so that we 
can sit outdoors in the manner that the Ma- 
dame so much enjoys and eat our dinner, or 
sip our coffee and cognac, while watching the 
ever-changing crowds go by. 

At Ostende the scale of expenses for every- 
thing, rooms, meals, service, pleasure, cigars, 
tips, and even for the English newspapers, in- 
creases or falls according to the proximity or 
remoteness of the Digue. If you are on top of 
it — look out! To Americans the charges, 
even in the finer big hotels, do not seem par- 
ticularly excessive — though in August they 
are usually much higher than in July — but 
there is a constant succession of incidental ex- 
penses that make the voyager as a rule hurry 
more than once to the banker where his letter 
of credit can have another illegible notation 
made on it. Externally the hotels are very im- 
posing and stately — making a brave show as 



Where Modern Flanders Shines 473 

one looks down the long line that extends for 
several miles from the harbour entrance west- 
ward to Westende and beyond half way to 
Nieuport. Within they are pretty much like 
all Belgian hotels of the better class. For the 
novelty of the thing we thought of renting one 
of the tiny apart ements meuhles, that, each with 
a charming broad window — usually open all 
day long like a piazza — look out directly upon 
the sea. The price was a thousand francs a 
month, which seemed too much for what was 
after all little more than one big room with an 
alcove. The landlady informed us that she at- 
tended to all the details of the menage, cooking 
and serving the meals and providing maid serv- 
ice, but that messieurs must provide the pro- 
visions, both solid and liquid. 

The great show place of Ostende is, of 
course, the Kursaal, a huge structure of glass, 
iron and stone belonging to no particular 
school of architecture, but in the main making 
a pleasing impression and serving very well 
indeed for the somewhat diversified uses for 
which it is intended. In the daytime the Kur- 
saal is a place of relatively little interest, al- 
though well-dressed people flock through it at 
all hours. At night it is the scene of much 
animation, and is, as it was meant to be, the 



474 The Spell of Flanders 

centre of tlie gay life of the town. A large 
orchestra gives a concert every evening in a 
very pretty concert hall, which, when we were 
there, contained numerous little tables for re- 
freshments, although I have seen pictures in 
which the room was filled with seats in solid 
rows, like a theatre. It was much more com- 
fortable the way we found it, and the concert 
was very enjoyable. At the intermission, how- 
ever, we observed that nearly everybody rose 
and flocked off into an anteroom leading out 
of the concert hall. The Professor and I de- 
cided that there appeared to be " something 
doing " in that direction and followed the 
crowd, leaving the ladies to look after our 
wraps, and promising to return and get them 
if we found anything worth while. 

I fear that the narrative of our experience 
may sound a bit like an extract from Inno- 
cents Abroad, but I will relate the thing as it 
happened and make no pretence that we were 
a bit more sophisticated than we really were. 
The crowd seemed to be headed through a long 
and handsome corridor toward a distant room. 
We followed along, passing on the way what 
looked more or less like the office of a hotel, 
with a register book and two or three clerks, 
to which we paid no attention. Arrived at the 



Where Modern Flanders Shines 475 

end of the corridor we found ourselves in a 
large circular room around which were a num- 
ber of small tables on which visitors were roll- 
ing balls down toward a group of pockets — 
some such a game as one sees at Coney 
Island or any popular American amusement 
resort. The price was two francs for three 
shots, and barkers were shouting lustily to all 
comers to try their luck. On one side a door- 
way was heavily curtained with velvet draper- 
ies and here occasional groups of the guests 
were silently disappearing. We approached 
this mysterious passageway and sought to pass 
like the others when two tiny lads in brilliant 
livery demanded our cards. On our replying 
that we had none, a large man, also in livery, 
appeared from somewhere behind the draper- 
ies and courteously informed us that special 
membership or admission cards were required 
from all who wished to proceed further. 

We thereupon returned to the ladies and re- 
ported what we had seen, and took our turn at 
looking after the wraps while they visited the 
circular room. They likewise returned, re- 
porting that admission beyond the curtains had 
been refused. After the concert was over we 
decided to make another attempt — as both the 
Professor and I surmised what attraction lay 



476 The Spell of Flanders 

beyond the mysterious portal. Pausing at the 
hotel office we had previously noticed, we asked 
bluntly how admission to the hidden room 
could be secured, and were told that a card 
would be given each of us on the sole formality 
of registering. This we accordingly did, giv- 
ing our names, hotel address, home address 
and one reference. This done, we each re- 
ceived a card admitting two and departed to 
find the Madame and Mrs. Professor. 

Arriving at the doorway armed with the cards 
we had received, we were ushered at once into a 
Very handsome room where perhaps three hun- 
dred people were gathered about half a dozen 
roulette tables. No one paid the slightest atten- 
tion to us, nor did any employe appear to care 
whether we played or contented ourselves with 
merely looking on. Practically every one in 
the room, however, was playing — with all the 
tense earnestness that this game of chance 
seems to impress upon its devotees. White 
chips, we observed, cost five francs, reds 
twenty, round blues a hundred — or twenty 
dollars. There were, in addition, a large oval- 
shaped blue, marked five hundred and an ob- 
long one marked one thousand. In less than 
three minutes one player lost eight of the thou- 
sand fl-anc chips, and then, this being appar- 



Where Modern Flanders Shines 477 

ently enough for the evening, lit a cigar and 
started for home. While he was playing we 
observed an over-painted young woman who 
had just lost her last stake solicit a loan from 
him. He tossed the girl a hundred-franc chip 
and left without pausing to see whether she 
won or lost with it. We were more curious. 
She lost. 

At about this period of the evening the Ma- 
dame raised a commotion by discovering that 
her reticule was open and a piece of money 
had fallen out onto the thick carpet. The Pro- 
fessor and I instantly got down to look for it, 
and even the croupiers at the adjoining gam- 
ing table paused to take in the incident. Two 
or three attendants and waiters hurried up to 
help when the Madame spied her lost coin and 
triumphantly seized it. It was a one centime 
piece — worth a fifth of a cent! I have never 
seen a more disgusted-looking group of attend- 
ants, and doubt if so small a coin had ever 
been seen before in this northern Monte Carlo. 
The Madame, however, was serenely indiffer- 
ent to their opinion. This was the nearest, I 
may add, that we came to losing any money 
there. 

At the end of the Esplanade is the Estacade^ 
a pier that extends well out to sea. Pleasure 



478 The Spell of Flanders 

steamers start here for short trips along the 
coast, and turning to the right at this end of 
the town one comes to the harbour and the 
broad basin where hundreds of little brown- 
sailed shrimp fishing-boats congregate. Sev- 
eral of these came in while we were there and 
sold their cargoes, almost as soon as they were 
tied up, to groups of eager market-women with 
big baskets. Several girls sat along the quay 
wall mending huge nets also used in the* shrimp 
fishery. The little back streets in this vicinity, 
and around the quaint fish-market, are the old- 
est in the town — and the most crooked. 

The principal business street of the little city 
is the rue de Flandre and its continuation, the 
rue de la Chapelle, which together take one 
from the Digue de Mer straight to the railway 
and boat stations. On one side of this street 
is the Place d'Armes, where a military band 
played every evening, and facing which is the 
Hotel de Ville. Our last day was spent poking 
about this part of the town in a pouring rain, 
with an occasional peep into huge cafes de- 
signed to accommodate a thousand guests, but 
which were then almost deserted. The rain 
ceased suddenly toward nightfall and we re- 
turned to the Digue for a farewell look at the 
crowds and the long beach. It was night be- 



Where Modern Flanders Shines 479 

fore we had seen enough, and then, after order- 
ing and enjoying to the utmost our last Flem- 
ish dinner, we made our way to the Gare Mari- 
time to take the night boat for Dover. As we 
steamed out past the long Estacade and looked 
back upon the gleaming lights along the Digue 
we saw the moon rising redly above the masts 
in the little harbour. This was our last view of 
Flanders, and, as we regretfully saw the lights 
of the city sink out of sight behind the tossing 
waves that gleamed brightly under the moon- 
beams, we knew that our pilgrimage was over. 



CHAPTER XXII 

THE SPELL OF FLANDEES 

PN" tliis little book the author has endeav- 
oured to portray as clearly as his limited 
powers of expression permitted, some of 
the many elements that make the spell that 
Flanders lays upon the minds and hearts of 
those who know it and love it well. It is a 
complex influence, composed of many and 
widely diverse factors. If in the narrative a 
thread of history has been permitted to ob- 
trude itself, sometimes perhaps at undue 
length, it is because before all else Flanders 
is a land whose interest lies in its long and 
romantic history, and in the marvellous man- 
ner in which its artists and sculptors have por- 
trayed its famous past. As Mr. Griffis in 
" Belgium, the Land of Art," has well ex- 
pressed it, '' No other land is richer in history 
or more affluent in art than is Belgium. In 
none have devout, industrious, patriotic and 
gifted sons told their country's story more at- 
tractively. By pen and in print, on canvas, in 

480 



The Spell of Flanders 481 

mural decoration, in sculpture, in monuments 
of bronze and marble, in fireplaces and in 
wood-carving, tlie story may be read as in 
an illuminated missal. Belfries, town halls, 
churches, guild houses, have each and all a 
charm of their own." If these pages have 
caught ever so little of that charm they have 
served their purpose. 

To the student of history, of art and archi- 
tecture, of tapestry and lace-making, of the ori- 
gin of the great woollen and linen industries, 
of guilds and the organisation of labour, of 
the commune or municipal republic in its earli- 
est and finest development, and — before all 
else — of liberty in its age-long conflict with 
tyranny and oppression, Flanders is a land 
of endless interest and inspiration. Nowhere 
else in the world can there be found within so 
small a compass so many monuments of the 
past, so many of the milestones of human prog- 
ress. That some of these relate to a past so 
remote as to be all but forgotten, while others 
are hidden away in spots where few tourists 
ever penetrate, only enhances the pleasure of 
those who are so persevering or so fortunate 
as to find them. 

Like rare wine, Flanders has mellowed with 
age, the storms and sunshine of succeeding 



482 The Spell of Flanders 

centuries touching its fine old houses, its noble 
churches and splendid town halls and guild 
houses but lightly — imparting the majesty of 
antiquity without the sadness of decay. Its 
dramatic and tragic history — some of which 
was so terrible in the making — lives again, 
without the old-time rancour and hatred, as the 
foundation upon which artists with chisel, 
brush or pen have created some of the finest of 
the world's masterpieces. 

That to-day Flanders has once more, as so 
often in the past, become the battleground of 
warring Europe gives an element of inexpressi- 
ble sadness to these feeble attempts to sketch 
its glories as they were only a few short 
months ago. Already some of the splendid 
monuments described in these pages have been 
shattered by engines of war more destructive 
than all those of all former wars taken to- 
gether. The noble Hotel de Ville at Ypres, the 
fine old church of St. Nicholas at Dixmude, the 
incomparable cathedral of Malines — we know 
that these at least have suffered fearfully, that 
they may have been injured beyond any hope 
of restoration. 

In this last sad chapter of Flemish history, it 
is a pleasure to be able to record the fact that 
the people of the United States have for the first 



The Spell of Flanders 483 

time entered its pages — and in a work of 
mercy. To the American people have been given 
the opportunity, the means and the disposition 
to play a noble part in this later history of much 
troubled Flanders — to feed the starving, care 
for the widowed and orphaned non-combatants 
of the great war, to help bind up the nation's 
wounds and restore hope and courage to its 
fearfully afflicted people. This is our part in 
the history of Flanders — our duty to the peo- 
ple of the brave nation of which Flanders 
forms so important and so famous a part. 
May all of those on whom the spell of Flan- 
ders falls do their share, however small, to help 
in this great work so long as the need lasts ! 

And when the great war is over let no Amer- 
ican tourist omit Flanders from his or her 
European itinerary. Its churches and town 
halls, its quaint crooked streets and sixteenth- 
century houses, have received a new and 
greater baptism of fire that has made them, one 
and all, shrines to which every lover of liberty 
should make a pilgrimage. Even the pleasant 
Belgian fields, with their bright poppies and 
com flowers, have a more profound interest 
now that so many of them have been stained 
with a deeper red than the poppies ever gave. 

THE END 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



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Altmeyer: Des Causes de la Decadence du Comptoir hanse- 

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Aemstrong, Edward: Emperor Charles V. 
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Boxjlger, Demetrius C. : Belgian Life in Town and Country. 

— Belgium of the Belgians. 

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BuMPUS, T. F.: Cathedrals and Churches of Belgium. 
Charriant, H.: La Belgique Moderne. 
Christyn, J. B. : Les D6lices des Pays-Bas. 
Conscience, Henri (or Hendryk) : De Kerels van Vlaanderen 
(The Lion of Flanders). 

— Many of the other works of this great Flemish author have 

been translated into English, French or German. 

Conway: Early Flemish Artists. 

Crowe, Sir J. A. and Cavalcaselle, C. B. : The Early Flem- 
ish Painters, Notices of their lives and work. 

De Flou, CfiARLES: Promenades dans Bruges. 

Delepierre, Octave: Annales de Bruges. 

— Chasse de Ste. Ursule. 

— Histoire de Charles le Bon. 

— Histoire de Marie de Bourgogne. 

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— Old Flanders, or Popular Traditions and Legends of Bel- 

gium. 

— Sketch of the History of Flemish Literature. 

Destree, J. and Van Den Ven, P.: Tapisseries des Musses 

Koyaux du Cinquantenaire a Bruxelles. 
Destree, Olrter Georges: The Kenaissance of Sculpture in 
' Belgivun. 

485 



486 Bibliography 



DuCLOS, Ad. : Bruges, Histoire et Souvenirs. 

Edwards, George Wharton: Some Old Flemish Towns. 

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GriffIS, W. E. : Belgium the Land of Art. 
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Havard, Henry: La Flandre a vol d'oiseau. 
Holland, Clive: Belgians at Home. 

Hymans, Henri: Anvers, in Les Villes d'Art celebres. 

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— Gand et Tournai, in same series. 

Jameson, Mrs. Anna Brownell: Sacred and Legendary Art. 

— Legends of the Madonnas. 

— Legends of the Monastic Orders. 

Kervyn de Lettenhove: Huguenots et Gueux. 

— La Flandre pendant les trois derniers Si&cles. 
KiNTSCHOTS, L. : Anvers et ses Faubourgs. 

Kirk, J. F.: History of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. 
Kxingenstmn, L. : The Great Infanta Isabel. 
Mac Donnell, John de Courcy : Belgium, her Kings, King- 
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Michiels, a.: Rubens et I'Ecole d'Anvers. 
Motley, John Lothrop: The Rise of the Dutch Republic. 

— History of the United Netherlands. 
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Omond, George W. T.: Brabant and East Flanders. 

— Belgium. 

Pirewne, H. : Histoire de la Belgique. 



Bibliography 487 



Reiffenbxibg : Memoire sur le Commerce des Pays-Bas au XVe 
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— Histoire de I'Ordre de la Toison d'Or. 

EoBEBTSON, William: History of the Reign of the Emperor, 

Charles the Fifth. 
EoBiNSON, Wilfrid C. : Antwerp, an Historical Sketch. 
RoosES, Max: Art in Flanders. 

— Christophe Plantin, Imprimeur anversois. 

— Catalogue du Mus^e Plantin-Moretus. 

— Geschiedenis de Antwerpsehe schilderschool. 
EoYAL Academy of Belgium: Biographic Nationale. 
SCHAYES, A. G-. B. : Histoire de I'Architecture en Belgique. 
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Scudamobe, Cyril: Belgium and the Belgians. 

Singleton, Esther: Art of the Belgian Galleries. 

Skbine, Francis Henry: Fontenoy and the War of the Aus- 
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Smythe, C. : The Story of Belgium. 

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Teemayne, Eleanor E. : The First Governess of the Nether- 
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Van de Vyvere, Paul: Audenaerde et ses Monuments. 

Vllbort, Joseph: Renaissance de la Litt^rature flamande, les 
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Wauters, Professor A. J.: The Flemish School of Painting. 

Zimmern, H. : The Hansa Towns. 



INDEX 



Aardenburg, 59. 

Adornes, Anselm and John, 
of Bruges, 309. 

Adrian of Utrecht, 341. 

Agincourt, Battle of, 220. 

Agrippa, Cornelius, 341. 

Aire, seized by Philip Augus- 
tus, 135. 

Albert, Archduke, and Regent 
of Spanish Netherlands, de- 
feated in Battle of the 
Dunes, 96-98; portrait by 
Rubens, 441; arrival at 
Antwerp, 447 ; welcomes 
Rubens, 448; 457; siege of 
Ostende, 465-469. 

Albert I, King of the Bel- 
gians, makes headquarters 
at Furnes in the Great War, 
87; continues wise policies 
of predecessors, 462; peace 
and contentment under 
reign of, 462-463. 

Alencon, Duke of, 419. 

Alfred the Great, taught by 
Judith, afterwards Coun- 
tess of Flanders, 26; 
daughter Alfrida marries 
Baldwin II, 24; 182. 

Alfrida, daughter of Alfred 
the Great, 34; 182. 

Allen, Grant, "Belgium, its 
Cities," cited, 235. 

Allowin, afterwards St. Ba- 
von, 181-182. 



Alost, seized by Spanish mu- 
tineers, 415. 

Alsace, revolts against tyran- 
ny of Charles the Bold, 289. 

Alva, Duke of, recommends 
destruction of Ghent, 352; 
made Regent of Spanish 
Netherlands, 381; 386; pol- 
icy a failure, 414-415; 416; 
citadel and statue demol- 
ished, 418-419; 447. 

Amiens, repulses Charles the 
Bold, 289; 326. 

Angelo, Michael, Virgin 
and Child at Bruges, 51; 
(Jompalreid with Rubens, 
438. 

Antigonus, legend of, 393- 
394. 

Antoing, village near Fonte- 
noy, 253; 255-256. 

Antwerp, an experience in, 8- 
11; crippled by closing of 
the Scheldt, 18-19; first 
view of, 20-21; 71; 170: 
228; "Ville d'Art," 268; 
painting by Van der Wey- 
den at, 272 ; works by Mem- 
ling at, 299; merchants 
leave Bruges for, 300; 312; 
"renowned for its money," 
320; 323; 324; Cathedral 
spire completed, 339-340; 
"monuments" classified, 
363; legend of Antigonus 



489 



490 



Index 



and Brabo, 393-394 ; 
Scheldt displaces the Zwyn 
as a highway of commerce, 
394-395; under Dukes of 
Brabant, 395-397 ; under 
Dukes of Burgundy, 397- 
398; Vielle Boiicherie and 
Steen, 399; new trade 
routes favour city, 399^01 ; 
Quentin Matsys, 401-403; 
other early Antwerp paint- 
ers, 403-405; legends of 
the Long Wapper, Kludde, 
etc., 405-410; prosperity 
under Charles V, 411; out- 
break of the iconoclasts, 
412-413; failure of the 
Duke of Alva, 414-415; the 
"Spanish Fury," 415-418; 
citadel and statue of Alva 
demolished, 418-419; the 
"French Fury," 419; the 
great siege, 419-422; ruin 
resulting from the Fury 
and the siege, 422-423; the 
great printing house of 
Plantin-Moretus, 423-437 ; 
home of Rubens, 438-439; 
Cathedral, description of, 
439-442; life and achieve- 
ments of Rubens, 442-447; 
mild government of Arch- 
dukes, 447-448; Van Dyck, 
449-452; Quellin, Jordaens, 
David Teniers and lesser 
Antwerp artists, 452-455 ; 
Royal Museum of Fine 
Arts, 455-456; Hotel de 
Ville, 456-457; later his- 



tory from the Archdukes 
to the Great War, 457-463. 

Archery contests in Belgium, 
105-110. 

Ardennes, 130. 

Arenburg, Duke of, 211. 

Arnolfini, Jean, and wife, por- 
traits of, by Jean Van 
Eyck, 340. 

Arnulph the Great, strength- 
ens Flemish cities, 35; 
founds St. Donatian's at 
Bruges, 35. 

Arras, Treaty of 1191, 189; 
Treaty of 1435, 222-223; 
tapestry workers organ- 
ised, 230; tapestries of, 
278-279; starting point of 
tapestry weaving, 385. 

Artois, Count of, besieges 
Furnes, 90; leads French 
at Battle of the Spurs, 157 ; 
death, 159; 160; County of 
Artois ceded to France, 189. 

Audenaerde, tapestries, 5 ; 
guildsmen from at Battle 
of the Spurs, 157; 202; 
siege of by Philip Van Ar- 
tevelde, 208; besieged by 
Philip the Bold, 218; be- 
sieged by men from Ghent, 
225; Louis XI drives tap- 
estry weavers from Arras 
to, 278; tapestry ateliers 
specialise in pastoral scenes, 
279 ; country around, de- 
scribed, 367-368; monu- 
ment to volunteers who 
died in Mexico, 369-370; 



Index 



491 



description of Hotel de 
Ville, 370-376; birthplace 
of Margaret of Parma, 377; 
communal museum in Ho- 
tel de Ville, 381-382; Cloth 
Hall, 382-383; church of 
Ste. Walburge, 383-385 ; 
tapestry weaving at, 385- 
387; church of Notre Dame 
de Pamela, 387-389; Cha- 
teau de Bourgogne, 390; 
many religious institutions 
of, 390; sieges and battles 
of the past, 391-392; 413. 

Austria, War of the Austrian 
Succession, 250; Austrian 
troops at Fontenoy, 251; 
arms of, at Audenaerde, 
373; Flanders during War 
of the Austrian Succession, 
458; under Austrian Em- 
pire, 458-459. 

Auxerre, marriage of Baldwin 
I and Judith in 863, 26. 

B 

Baldwin of Constantinople, 

Count of Flanders, 129- 

139; painting of, at Cour- 

trai, 152; 153; 162; 189; 

197; portrait of, 373. 
Baldwin of the Iron Arm, 

first Count of Flanders, 26 ; 

remains of old Bourg, 27; 

traces of chapel, 28 ; 55-56 ; 

57; 218. 
Baldwin II, marries- Alfrida, 

34; fortifies Flemish towns, 

34-35; 182. 



Baldwin V, Count of Flan- 
ders, tower of, at Aude- 
naerde, 376. 

Baldwin VIII, signs Tteaty 
of Arras, 189. 

Basina, marriage to Childeric 
at Tournai, 246-247; 265. 

Basinus, King of the Thurin- 
gians, 246. 

Battle of the Spurs, 58; 119; 
account of, 156-160; 177; 
191; effects of, 192-193; 
196; 224; 314. 

Bazaine, Marshal of France, 
370. 

Beaconsfield, Lord, quoted, 
251. 

Beaune, painting by Van der 
Weyden at, 271. 

Beauvais, repulses Charles 
the Bold, 289; 387. 

Bgguinage, at Bruges, 33-36; 
origin of institution, 34- 
35; Grand B6guinage at 
Ghent, 35; description of, 
209-213; Petit Beguinage 
at Ghent, 210; at Aude- 
naerde, 390. 

Belfry, at Bruges, built above 
the Boterbeke, 27; history 
and description of, 63-67; 
at Courtrai, 147-148; at 
Ghent, 184; description of, 
195-198; at Tournai, de- 
scription of, 262-263; at 
Bruges, completed under 
Margaret of Austria, 340. 

Belgian coast, 16; Belgian 
barbers, 44^6; Belgian 



492 



Index 



state Railway train service, 

79-83 ; Belgian popular 

sports, 105-115; Belgian 

thrift, 216-217; Belgian 

State Railway, working 

peoples' trains, 242-245. 
Bellegambe, 274. 
Bergues, canal from Nieu- 

port to, 104. 
Berthout, Gauthier, Bishop of 

Malines, 312. 
Berthout, Jean, Bishop of 

Malines, 314. 
Bertulph, Provost of St. Don- 

atian, 37; executed at 

Ypres, 40^1. 
Bicycle racing in Belgium, 

111-112. 
Billets d'ahonnement, 3; 79; 

for working-people, 242- 

243. 
Biloque (or Biloke) Hospital 

at Ghent, 209. 
Bladelin, Peter, town house 

at Bruges, 309; founder of 

Middleburg, 309. 
Blankenberghe, from the sea, 

16; part of the Franc of 

Bruges, 59; 324. 
Blas&re, William de, con- 
structs first hothouse at 

Ghent, 356. 
Blaton, 368. 
Blbndeel, Lancelot, 61. 
Bliicher, 359. 
Bosch, Jerome, 341 ; 405. 
Botanical Garden at Malines, 

316; at Ghent, 356-358. 
Boterbeke River, intersection 



with the Roya, 26; subter- 
ranean channel of, 27. 

Boulger, "History of Bel- 
gium," quoted, 293. 

Bouts, Dierick, life and prin- 
cipal works, 307-309; 341; 
401. 

Bouvines, Battle of, 136. 

Brabant, Duchy of, 137; 
united to Flanders by mar- 
riages of Cambrai, 218- 
219; Philip the Good be- 
comes Duke of, 221; Duke 
of, at siege of Tournai, 249 ; 
286; Dukes of, contend 
with Counts of Flanders 
for Malines, 315; Dukes of, 
rule over Antwerp, 395- 
397. 

Brabo, legend of, 393-394. 

Braekeleer, Henri de, "Nurs- 
ery Garden" in Antwerp 
Museum, 456. 

Braine-le-Comte, Flemish 
name for, 150. 

Brauwer, Adrian, 454. 

Breidel, John, Dean of Butch- 
ers' Guild at Bruges, 154; 
at the Matin de Bruges, 
155-156; at the Battle of 
Courtrai, 157-160. 

Breughel, Peter the Elder, 
principal works and char- 
acteristics, 404-405. 

Brioches, 46. 

Britto, Jean, printer at 
Bruges, 58. 

Broederlam, Melchior, early 
painter of Ypres, 230'-231. 



Index 



493 



Broel Towers at Courtrai, 
164. 

Brou, in Savoy, 335-336. 

Bruges, repels Philip the 
Good in 1437, 4; murder of 
Charles the Good, 4-5 and 
36-42; lace makers at, 5; 
the first capital of Flan- 
ders, 13; first visit to, 24; 
founding of, 26; derivation 
of name, 26-27; Vieux 
Bruges (old Bruges), 27- 
28; more tourists than 
formerly, 30; some quaint 
old streets, 31; lacemakers 
on rue du Eouleau, 32; for- 
tified by Baldwin II, 34; 
from Charles the Good to 
Marie of Burgundy, 52-53; 
charter granted by Philip 
of Alsace, 55; description 
of Hotel de Ville, 57-59; 
Belfry and chimes, 65-67; 
Ealles, description of, 67- 
68; period of greatest com- 
mercial activity, 68-70; 
silting up of the Zwyn, 70^ 
71; Baldwin of Constanti- 
nople holds coixrt at, 137; 
artisans from Ypres move 
to, 145; revolt against the 
French, 154; visit of King 
of France, 155; the Matin 
de Bruges, 155-156; guilds- 
men from Bruges at Battle 
of the Spurs, 157; 171; su- 
perseded by Ghent as capi- 
tal of Flanders, 189; 190; 
192; 197; influence of 



Jacques Van Artevelde in, 
200; capital of Louis of 
Maele, 205; 210; Philip the 
Good establishes Order of 
the Golden Fleece, 221-222; 
the Bruges Vespers, 223- 
224; the "Great Humilia- 
tion," 224-225; Guild of 
St. Luke organised, 229- 
230; Jehan de Bruges, 230; 
"Ville d'Art," 268; 277; 
principal capital of Charles 
the Bold, 287; marriage of 
Maximilian and Marie of 
Burgundy, 294 ; Memling 
at Bruges, 294-299; Gheer- 
hardt David, 299-300; 
other early Flemish paint- 
ers, 300-302; the Gruut- 
huise Palace, 302-305 ; 
Cathedral of St. Sauveur, 
305-307; other fine old 
mediaeval buildings, 309- 
310; 312; "renowned for its 
pretty girls," 321; 323; 
Treaty of Cambrai, 338- 
339; Belfry completed un- 
der Margaret of Austria, 
340 ; 344 ; paintings by Van 
der Goes, 362; "monu- 
ments" classified, 363; 366; 
393; 394; 397; 398; at- 
tempt to close the Scheldt, 
399-400; 401; 434; 448; 
456. 

Brunehault, rival of Frede- 
gonda, 247-248. 

Brussels, 9; relation to Flan- 
ders, 12-13; more French 



494 



Index 



than Flemish, 13; weather 
at, 22-23; passage through, 
24; 150; 170; 219; Hotel 
de Ville built by Philip the 
Good, 228; tapestry work- 
ers organised, 230; part of 
the "Adoration of the 
Lamb" in Museum, 238; 
243; work of Van der Wey- 
den at, 271; "Abdication 
of Charles V," by Gallait 
at, 273; Stallaert's "Death 
of Dido" at, 274; tapestry 
weavers of Arras driven to, 
278 ; extorts privileges from 
Charles the Bold, 287; 
works by Memling at, 299; 
works by Dierick Bouts at, 
308 ; "renowned for its no- 
ble men," 321; 324; 339; 
Cathedral of Ste. Gudule 
erected, 340 ; manuscripts 
of Margaret of Austria in 
Bibliotheque Koyale, 342 ; 
Marie of Hungary removes 
capital to, 342; 351; 359; 
"Madness of Hugo Van der 
Goes" in the Modern Gal- 
lery, 361; portrait of 
Charles the Bold by Van 
der Goes, 362; 367; 368; 
Henri Van P6de architect 
of Hotel de Ville, 371; 
"Legend of St. Anne," by 
Quentin Matsys, 403; 443; 
444; Modern Gallery com- 
pared with Royal Museum 
at Antwerp, 456; 464. 
Burgundy, Dukes of, 4; 17; 



174; the marriages of Cam- 
brai, 218-219; power ex- 
tended by Treaty of Arras, 
222-223; further extended 
at P^ronne, 288; defeated 
by Swiss at Granson, Morat 
and Nancy, 290-292; King- 
dom of Burgundy almost 
established, 293; 315; 351; 
early chateau at Aude- 
naerde, 390; 395; acquire 
Antwerp, 398; tyranny of, 
462. 
Byzantine Emperors, coins of, 
found at Tournai, 265. 



Caen, Normandy, Plantin 
learns art of printing in, 
423; 424. 

Caesar, Julius, 245; 393. 

Calais, siege of by Philip the 
Good, 223. 

Calloo, 399; 420; 421. 

Calvinists, partially destroy 
Abbey of St. Bavon, 184; 
propose to present "Adora- 
tion of the Lamb" to Queen 
Elizabeth, 237. 

Cambrai, 61; Marriages of, 
218-219; League of, 337; 
Treaty of, 338-339; 351. 

Campin, Robert, early painter 
of Tournai, 270; 273; 274. 

Carnot, Gen., defence of Ant- 
werp, 460. 

Cassel, captured by Philip 
Augustus, 135. 



Index 



495 



Castle of the Counts (Cha- 
teau des Comtes ) , at Ghent, 
170-179; stormed by Jac- 
ques Van Artevelde, 200; 
birthplace of John fii 
Gaunt, 201; 233; 262; 
Ligvin Pyn tortured at, 
349. 
Caxton, William, learns print- 
ing at Bruges, 228. 
Cayas, Gabriel de, patron of 
Christopher Plantin, 424 ; 
interests Philip II in Biblia 
Begia, 426. 
Chapel of the Holy Blood at 
Bruges, crypt of St. Basil, 
27-28; receives relic from 
Dierick of Alsace, 55-56; 
Procession and Confrerie, 
56; ruined during French 
Eevolution, 56-57; restora- 
tion, 57; 58. 
Charlemagne, breaking up of 

empire of, 26. 
Charles the Bald, creates title 

of Count of Flanders, 26. 
Charles the Bold, 3; tomb at 
Bruges, 51-53; betrothal at 
Damme, 75-77; 124; 271; 
meteoric career and death, 
285-294; 295; 302; 305; 
310; 333; 344; portrait of, 
362. 
Charles I, King of England, 
knights Rubens, 448; em- 
ploys Van Dyek as court 
painter, 451-452. 
Charles V, the Emperor, 52; 
62; statue at Courtrai, 



152; destroys Abbey of St. 
Bavon, 183-184; orders bell 
Roland removed, 197; cap- 
tures Tournai, 249; "Ab- 
dication of," painting by 
Louis Gallait, 273; 292; 
christened, 335 ; educated 
by Margaret of Austria, 
336; becomes King of 
Spain, 337; elected King of 
the Romans, 338; chosen 
Emperor, 338; rejoicings at 
Ghent over birth of, 346; 
vast extent of dominions at 
' age of twenty, 346-347; 
348; revolt of Ghent in 
1539, 349-350; withdrav?s 
all the city's ancient priv- 
ileges, 350-355; origin of 
Butchers' Guild of Ghent, 
365; portrait of, at Aude- 
naerde, 373; many remind- 
ers of, at Audenaerde, 374; 
inserts spectacles in arms 
of Audenaerde, 373; statue 
of, 375; portrait of, 376; 
father of Margaret of 
Parma, 377-378; 381; 395; 
aids prosperity of Ant- 
Averp, 411; 412; great bell 
at Antwerp named for, 441, 

Charles the Good, murder of, 
4-5 and 36-42; rebuilds 
Cathedral of St. Sauveur, 
47; erects part of church of 
Notre Dame, 50; Bruges in 
the days of, 52-53; 54; 305. 

Charles VI, Emperor of Aus- 
tria, 458; 469. 



496 



Index 



Charles VI, King of France, 

sacks Courtrai, 161-162; 

wins battle of Rosbecque, 

207; 218. 
Charles VII, King of France, 

concludes Treaty of Arras, 

222-223. 
Charles VIII, King of France, 

334. 
Charolais, Count of, 233. 
Chateaubriand, minister of 

Louis XVIII, 358. 
Childeric, marriage with Ba- 

sina at Tournai, 246-247; 

incidents in life of, carved 

on portal of the Cathedral, 

260; relics of, discovered, 

264-265 ;.281. 
Chilperic, King of the Franks, 

247; besieged at Tournai, 

248; 281. 
Chimes, at Bruges, 65-67; at 

Malines, 322-325; at Aude- 

naerde, 381; at Antwerp, 

440. 
Christus, Petrus, early 

painter of Bruges, 240. 
Claire, Lord, at Battle of 

Fontenoy, 254. 
Clauwaerts, partisans of 

Flemish independence, 154; 

Jacques Van Artevelde, 

leader of, 199. 
Clays, P. J., 456. 
Clovis, King of the Franks, 

247. 
Concession Caroline, promul- 
gated by Charles V in 1540, 

355. 



Columbus, discovery of Amer- 
ica helps Antwerp, 400. 

Conde, defeats French under 
Turenne, 95. 

Conscience, Hendryk, Flemish 
novelist, 36. 

Conynck, Peter de, Dean of 
Weavers at Bruges, 154; 
leader at the Matin de 
Bruges, 155-156; at Battle 
of Courtrai, 157-160; 193. 

Coolman, Gauthier, 319. 

Cornelis, Albert, early painter 
of Bruges, 301. 

Cortes, 347. 

Counts of Flanders, rule over 
part of France, 12; origin 
of County, 25; the first 
Count, Baldwin of the Iron 
Arm, 26 ; model of first cas- 
tle, 28; Emperor makes ti- 
tle hereditary, 34; 54; 
151; castle of, at Ghent, 
170-179; foster Abbey of 
St. Bavon, 182; make 
Ghent their capital, 1S9; 
decline in power of, 190; 
weakness after Battle of 
the Spurs, 192-193; obtain 
temporal power over Ma- 
lines, 315; 351; Scheldt 
their frontier, 394-395. 

Courtrai, linens, 5; fortified 
by Baldwin II, 34; 58; de- 
stroyed by Philip Augus- 
tus, 136; lace makers at, 
141; 146; Belfry, 147-148; 
Hotel de Ville, 151-153; 
Battle of Courtrai, 152- 



Index 



497 



160; churches of, 161-163; 
Broel towers at, 164; 193; 
314. 

Coxcie, Michel, 237; 238; 
339; 341; 386. 

Coxyde, dunes at, 92-93; 
pecheurs de crevettes, 93. 

Grayer, Gaspard de, 384; re- 
ligious pictures of, 453. 

Crecy, Battle of, 203. 

Crispin, 431. 

Crowe and Cavalcaselle, "The 
Early Flemish Painters," 
cited, 235. 

Cuches au heurre, 46-47. 

Cumberland, Duke of, de- 
feated at Fontenoy, 251- 
255. 

D 

Damme, receives charter from 
Philip of Alsace, 55; birth 
of Van Maerlant (mural 
painting), 59; period of 
prosperity and present as- 
pect, 72-75; betrothal of 
Margaret of York by 
Charles the Bold, 76-77; 
destroyed by Philip Augus- 
tus, 135 ; rallying place for 
Clauwaerts before the Ma- 
tin de Bruges, 155; de- 
stroyed by Philip the Bold, 
219. 

Danes, invasions of, 34. 

Daret, Jacques, early painter 
of Tournai, 270; 273. 

David, Gheerhardt, life and 
principal works, 299-300. 



Davis, Thomas Osborne, poet, 
"Battle of Fontenoy" quot- 
ed, 253-255. 

Delbeke, Louis, 123. 

Deledicque, Antony, 139. 

Delvin, Jean, 93. 

Dendermonde ( Termonde ) , 
202; 310. 

Denuce, assistant curator of 
Plantin Museum, 434. 

Denyn, Josef, official bell 
ringer at Malines, 323- 
324; 440. 

Denys, GSrard, Dean of Weav- 
ers at Ghent, 204. 

Devreese, Godefroid, sculptor 
of Courtrai, 165. 

Dierick of Alsace, Count of 
Flanders, 54 ; wise rule, 
54-55; brings Holy Blood 
from Jerusalem, 55-56; 59; 
129; 171; besieges ancient 
castle at Ghent, 177; por- 
trait of, 373. 

Dierick, Lord of Dixmude, 
legendary hero, 179. 

Dijon, capital of Burgundy, 
148; paintings by Melchior 
Broederlam at, 230-231; 
"The Last Judgment" by 
Van der Weyden, at 
Beaune, 271; 287. 

Dinant, 277; 286. 

Dixmude, at time of the Cru- 
sades, 13 ; part of the Franc 
of Bruges, 59; history of, 
83; church of St. Nicholas, 
84-85 ; gateaux d'ames, 85 ; 
ravages of the war, 86; 



498 



Index 



Yser River and canal, 103- 

104; church of St. Nicholas 

destroyed by the Germans, 

482. 
Dozzo, Gasparo, rich Antwerp 

merchant, 411. 
Dumery, George, 65. 
Du Guesclin, 70. 
Dumuriez, general of first 

French Republic, 459. 
Dunes, viewed from the sea, 

15; at Coxyde, 92-93; Bat- 
tle of the Dunes, 96-98; 

465. 
Dunkerque, receives charter 

from Philip of Alsace, 55; 

canal from Nieuport to, 

104. 
Duquesnoy, Jerome, 241 ; 

355; influenced by Rubens, 

453. 
Dyle, river, at Malines, 312; 

314; views from, 316; 317; 

grand pont across, 333; 

334. 
Dyver, at Bruges, 27; view 

of Notre Dame from, 50. 



E 



Eccloo, part of the Franc of 
Bruges, 59. 

Edward I, King of England, 
obtains Antwerp as a fief, 
397. 

Edward III, King of Eng- 
land, 198; treats with 
Jacques Van Artevelde, 
200; wins Battle of Sluys, 



201 ; welcomes Flemish 
weavers, 204-205; besieges 
Tournai, 248-249; at Ant- 
werp, 397. 

Edward IV, King of England, 
guest of the Lord of Gruut- 
huise, 303. 

Egmont, Count of, "Last 
Honours to" and "Last Mo- 
ments of" by Louis Gallait, 
273-274. 

Eleanor, Queen of France, 
339. 

Elizabeth, Queen of England, 
237; sends English garri- 
son to Ostende, 465-466. 

Epinoy, Christine, Princess 
of, heroic defence of Tour- 
nai, 249; statue of, 262; 
painting of, 274. 

Erasmus, 341. 

Erembald, house of, 37; mur- 
der of Charles the Good, 
38; besieged in church of 
St. Donatian, 30; flung 
from church tower, 41; 
house nearly annihilated, 
42. 

Erembald, blacksmith at 
Bruges, 65. 

Ethelwolf, King of Wessex, 
26. 

Eugene, Prince of Savoy, 391. 

Everard, Nicholas, 341. 



Faid'herbe, Luke, sculptor of 
Malines, 326 ; designs 



Index 



499 



church of Notre Dame 
d'Hanswyck, 329; pupil of 
Rubens, 453. 

Farnese, Octavio, Duke of 
Parma, 378. 

Ferdinand of Aragon, 62. 

Ferdinand, King of Bohemia, 
339. 

Ferdinand of Portugal, Count 
of Flanders, 122; 135-136. 

F6r6, Pierrot, tapestry maker 
of Arras, 279. 

Ferrand, Count of Flanders, 
190. 

Flanders, location of, 1 and 
12-13; historical interest 
of, 3-5; Bruges first cap- 
ital of, 13; plan of chron- 
ological tour of, 14; cli- 
mate, 22-24; travel hints, 
23; origin of the Coimty, 
25; just misses becoming 
independent, 192-193; "the 
cock-pit of Europe," 250- 
251; 286; end of independ- 
ence in 1540, 355; arms of, 
at Audenaerde, 373; the 
Scheldt its Eastern bound- 
ary, 394-395. 

Flemish architecture, 3; art, 
6; inns, 7-11; language, 
12-13; coast, 15-16; clean- 
liness, 43-44; language in 
West Flanders, 99-100; 
Belgium bi-lingual, 149- 
150; Flemish dinners, 213- 
215. 

Fleurus, Battle of, 459. 

Floris, Corneille, 261. 



Floris, Frans, 386; life and 
chief works, 403-404. 

Flowers in Belgium, 165-166; 
fondness of people for, 284; 
Bishop Triest encourages 
horticulture at Ghent, 355- 
356; first hothouse, 356; 
Botanical Gardens at 
Ghent, 357-358. 

Flushing, 17; 334. 

Fontenoy, Battle of, 250- 
255; battlefield and monu- 
ment, 256; 458. 

Franchoys, Luc, 331. 

Francis I, King of France, 
62; loses Tournai, 248; 
concludes Treaty of Cam- 
brai, 338-339. 

Fredegonda, Queen of the 
Franks, 247-248. 

Frederick II, Emperor, of- 
fers crown to Charles the 
Bold, 285; 294; defeated 
by burghers of Ghent, 345. 

Froissart, 148; eulogy of 
Ghent, 169; description of 
"Mad Margery," 208-209; 
describes siege of Tournai, 
249. 

Fugger, Anthony, fame of his 
wealth, 411. 

Furnes, at time of the Cru- 
sades, 13; receives charter 
from Philip of Alsace, 55; 
history, 86-87; 90; the 
Procession of, 87-89; prin- 
cipal buildings, 90-92. 

Fyts, John, animal pictures 
of, 453. 



500 



Index 



G 

Galeswintha, sister of Brune- 
hault, 248. 

Gallait, Louis, "Last Honours 
to Counts Egmont and 
Horn," 273; other notable 
works, 213-274; in Ant- 
werp Museum, 456. 

Gavre, Battle of, 225-227; 
344. 

Geefs, W., sculptor, 369. 

George II, King of England, 
251. 

Gertrude, Countess of Flan- 
ders, 87. 

Ghent, fortified by Baldwin 
II, 34; receives charter 
from Philip of Alsace, 55; 
attack on Nieuport in 
1383, 95; repulsed at 
Ypres, 144; artisans from 
Ypres move to, 145; loyal 
to French in 1302, 156; 
greatness in the Middle 
Ages, 169-170; Chateau 
des Comtes, 170-179; Ab- 
bey of St. Bavon, 181-185; 
chateau of Girard the 
Devil, 185-186; church of 
St. Nicholas, 186-188; ca- 
thedral of St. Bavon, 188; 
rapid growth in power, 
189-191; takes popular 
side after Battle of the 
Spurs, 194; guilds, 194- 
195; Belfry, 195-198 
Cloth Hall (Halles), 197 
the Mammelokker, 198 



Jacques Van Artevelde, 
199-204; expulsion ,of 
weavers, 204-205 ; Philip 
Van Artevelde, 206-207 ; 
resists Philip the Bold, 
218; rebels against Philip 
the Good, 225; crushed at 
Gavre, 226-227 ; 228 ; Guild 
of St. Luke organised, 229; 
230; 233; "the Adoration 
of the Lamb," 234-238; 
262; "Ville d'Art," 268; ex- 
torts concessions from 
Charles the Bold, 287; de- 
nounced by Charles, 289; 
312; "renowned for its hal- 
ters," 321; Hotel de Ville 
completed, 340; 344; the 
Rabot, 345-346 ; rejoicings 
over birth of Charles V, 
346; decline of cloth indus- 
try, 347; Hotel de Ville, 
description of, 347-349 ; 
outbreak of 1539, 349; 
execution of Lievin Pyn, 
350 ; Emperor withdraws 
liberties and privileges, 
350-355 ; Bishop Triest and 
beginnings of horticulture, 
355-357 ; Botanical Gar- 
den, 357-359; Louis XVIII 
at, 358-359; Justus of 
Ghent and Hugo Van der 
Goes, 360-362; Gerard Van 
der Meire, 363; ranks first 
in "monuments," 363; some 
of its minor monuments, 
363-366; Margaret of Par- 
ma presented as Regent at, 



Index 



501 



379; 391; 394; 397; 442. 
Ghistelle, Lords of, 309. 
Gilliat-Smith, Ernest, "Story 

of Bruges," cited, 310. 
Gilliodts, archevist of Bruges, 

quoted, 66-67. 
Girard the Devil (Girard le 

Diable), chateau of, 1S5- 

186; 195; 197; 241. 
Godfrey of the Beard, Duke 

of Brabant, 395. 
Godfrey of Bouillon, 187. 
Gordon, Pryse L., cited, 180. 
Gossaert, Jan (or Mabuse), 

painting by, at Tournai, 

274; at court of Margaret 

of Austria, 339. 
Granson, Battle of, 271; 290; 

291; 294. 
Granville, Cardinal, 426. 
Gravelines, 55. 
Grifiis, "Belgium, the Land 

of Art," quoted, 480. 
Groeninghe, Abbey of, 159; 

Flemish name for Battle of 

the Spurs, 164. 
Grupello, sculptor of Rubens 

school, 453. 
Gruuthuise, Louis (or Lode- 

wyk) Van der, 302; 303. 
Gruuthuise Palace, 68; 302- 

305. 
Gryeflf, Adolphus de, 386. 
Gueldre, Duke of, 313. 
Gueux, 328; 329. 
Gitffens, Godefroid, fresco at 

Ypres, 124; at Courtrai, 

152. 
Guido Gezelle, poet, 163. 



Guilds, at Bruges, 64 and 70; 
the 400 guilds of Ypres, 
128; guild leaders in 1302, 
154; at Battle of Courtrai, 
157; power of, 192-193; 
guild houses in 14th cen- 
tury, 194-195; slaughter of 
the fullers, 202; slaughter 
of the weavers, 204; expul- 
sion of weavers, 204-205; 
at Malines, 313-315; house 
of Boatmen's Guild at 
Ghent, 347; flue guild 
houses of Ghent, 365; or- 
igin of Butchers' Guild, 
365. 

Guizot, minister of Louis 
XVIII, 358. 

Guy of Dampierre, Count of 
Flanders, 122; 153-154; 
grants Ghent a new Keure, 
191. 

Guy of Namur, 193. 

H 

Hachette, Jeanne, heroine of 
Beauvais, 289. 

Hacket, Chatelain of Bruges, 
37; 42. 

Hainaut, County of, 130; 
united to Flanders by mar- 
riages of Cambrai, 218- 
219; Philip the Good be- 
comes Count of, 221; 243; 
Count of, at siege of Tour- 
nai, 249. 

Hal, baptismal font at, 277. 

Hanseatic League, 58; at 



502 



Index 



Bruges, 69 ; abandons 
Bruges for Antwerp, 71; 

401. 
Hay, Lord, at Battle of Fon- 

tenoy, 254. 
Hemony, Pierre, 323. 
Hennebicq, painter of Tour- 

nai, 274. 
Hennequin, painter of Tour- 

nai, 274. 
Henry III, Duke of Brabant, 

grants privileges to Ant- 
werp, 396. 
Henry V, King of England, 

wins Battle of Agincourt, 

220. 
Henry VIII, captures Tour- 

nai, 249; tower of, 266- 

267. 
Herkenbald, "Justice of," 

painting by Van der Wey- 

den, 271. 
Heuvick, early painter of Au- 

denaerde, 382. 
Heyst, 16; 324. 
Higronimites, 186. 
Horembout, Gerard, 341. 
Horn, Count of, "Last Hon- 
ors to," 273; 412. 
Hugonet, minister of Marie 

of Burgundy, 349. 
Humbercourt, minister of 

Marie of Burgundy, 349. 
Hundred Years' War, 70; 

143; 198. 



Iconoclasts for "Image 



Breakers"), at Malines, 
328; 329; 370; outbreak of, 
380-381; at Audenaerde, 
389; at Antwerp, 412-413; 
440. 

Innocent VIII, 305-306. 

Inquisition, meeting-place at 
Furnes, 91; 415. 

Isabella of Castile, 62. 

Isabel, Queen of Denmark, 
339. 

Isabella, Queen of "France, 
155. 

Isabella, Regent of the Neth- 
erlands, 422; portrait by 
Rubens, 444; arrival at 
Antwerp, 447 ; encourages 
Rubens, 448; 457; at siege 
of Ostende, 467; weeps at 
ruin of the town, 469. 

Isabel of Portugal, marries 
Philip the Good, 221; por- 
trait of, 238; picture of, in 
collection of Margaret of 
Austria, 340-341. 



Jacqueline, Countess of Hai- 
naut and Holland, 176- 
177; forced to abdicate, 
221. 

Jansenius, Bishop of St. Mar- 
tin at Ypres, 125-126. 

Janssens, Victor, 386. 

Jean II, Duke of Brabant, 
314. 

Jeanne d'Arc, 221. 

Jeanne of Constantinople, 
Countess of Flanders, 122; 



Index 



503 



132; 135; 136-139; founds 
first Beguinage at Ghent, 
210. 

Jelian de Bruges, early paint- 
er, 230. 

Jehan de Hasselt, early paint- 
er, 230. 

Jemappes, Battle of, 459. 

Joanna of Spain (Jeanne de 
Castile), 62; 346. 

John, Prince of Asturias, 
334-335 ; sudden death, 335. 

John, Don, of Austria, Re- 
gent of the Netherlands, 
415; 418. 

John of Bavaria, 234. 

John I, Dulse of Brabant, 
grants the Core van Ant- 
werp en, 396. 

John II, Duke of Brabant 
gives Antwerp to Edward 
I, 397. 

John III, Duke of Brabant, 
extends rights of foreigners 
at Antwerp, 396-397. 

John the Fearless, Duke of 
Burgundy, 220 ; court 
painter of, 231; 233; 383. 

John of Gaunt (Ghent), 
Duke of Lancaster, birth of, 
201; 221. 

John, King of England, alli- 
ance with Ferdinand of 
Portugal, 136. 

Jordaens, Jacob, "Adoration 
of the Magi" at Dixmude, 
84; characteristics, 453; 
455; 456. 

Joseph II, Emperor of Aus- 



tria, 237; revolt against, 
458-459. 

Josephine, Empress of France, 
saves Botanical Garden at 
Ghent, 357-358. 

Judith, first Countess of 
Flanders, 26 ; traces" of her 
chapel, 28; 34. 

Justus of Ghent, early Flem- 
ish painter, 360-362, 

Justus Lipsius, meets Chris- 
topher Plantin, 429; writes 
his epitaph, 430; 431; 441. 

K 

Kaboutermannekens, legends 
of, 408-409. 

Karls, refuse allegiance to 
feudal overlords, 37; sup- 
port the Erembalds, 38; 
receive Keurbrief from 
Philip of Alsace, 60-61. 

Katherine, Queen of Portugal, 
339. 

Keldermans, Andre, Antoine 
I, Antoine II, Jean, Lau- 
rent and Mathieu, all ar- 
chitects of Malines, 319- 
320. 

Keldermans, Rombaut, archi- 
tect of Malines, 318; 320; 
rebuilds Hotel de Savoy, 
336 ; receives many commis- 
sions from Margaret of 
Austria, 339-340; designs 
Maison de la Eeure at 
Ghent, 348. 

Kerel van Yper, painter of 
Ypres, 141. 



504 



Index 



Kermesse, its antiquity, 115; 
3718; 449. 

Keyser, Nicaise de, 160. 

Kiliaen, the Flemish lexicog- 
rapher, 433. , 

Kipling, quoted, 29. 

Kludde, legends of, 409-410. 

Ivnocke, 16. 



Lac d'Amour, Bruges, see 
Minnewater. 

Laevinius Torrentius, 433. 

Lagye, Victor, 457. 

Lalaing, Countess of, 377; 
378. 

Lalaing, Philippe, Count of, 
371. 

Lannoy, Charles de, 02. 

Larks in Belgium, 166-168. 

Legend of Baldwin of Con- 
stantinople, 130-133; of 
siege of Ghent in 930, 179- 
180; of St. Nicholas, 187; 
of the Mammelokker, 198; 
concerning the wealth of 
the Flemish burghers, 207- 
208 ; of the marriage of 
Childeric and Basina, 246- 
247 ; of Memling's wound 
at Nancy, 295-296; of the 
"Vuyle Bruydegom'' at Ma- 
lines, 332-333; of Anti- 
gonus and Brabo at Ant- 
werp, 393-394; of Lohen- 
grin, 394; of Quentin 
Matsys, 401-402; of the 
Long Wapper of Antwerp, 



405-408; of the Kabouter- 
mannekens, 408-409 ; of 
Kludde, 409-410; of Van 
Dyck at Saventhem, 449- 
451. 

Lemaire des Beiges, Jean, 
341. 

Leopold I, King of the Bel- 
gians, first welcomed to 
Belgium at Furnes, 87; 
elected King, 461; frees the 
Scheldt in 1863, 461. 

Leopold II, King of the Bel- 
gians, an efficient chief 
executive, 461-462; Palace 
at Ostende, 470. 

Leys, Baron Henri, 456; 
jjaintings in Hotel de Ville 
at Antwerp, 457. 

Liederick de Buck, portrait 
of, 373. 

Liedts, Baroness, lace collec- 
tion at Bruges, 304. 

Liege, 106; 286; insurrec- 
tions at, 287-288; city 
sacked, 288; 312; 344. 

Lieve, river, at Ghent, 169; 
172. 

Liliaerts, partisans of France, 
154; 189; 191; 194. 

Lille, destroyed by Philip Au- 
gustus, 136; Baldwin of 
Constantinople executed at, 
138-139; 207; fetes held 
by Philip the Good at, 227; 
280. 

Lissweghe, 59. 

Lombartzyde, 95; statue of 
the Virgin, 104-105. 



Index 



505 



Longfellow, quoted, 67. 

Long Wapper of Antwerp, 
legends of, 405-408. 

Louis of Maele, Count of 
Flanders, 59; 175; besieged 
at Ghent, 178; 183; 204; 
marriage of daughter, 205- 
206; defeated by Philip 
Van Artevelde, 206; death, 
207; wealth of Ghent dur- 
ing reign of, 207-208; 218; 
court painter of, 230; 397. 

Louis of Nevers, Count of 
Flanders, 124; 194; 198; 
vainly resists popular 
party, 199-200; hires as- 
sassination of Jacques Van 
Artevelde, 202-203; death 
at Crecy, 203. 

Louis the Fat, King of 
France, 41-42. 

Louis XI, King of France, 
lives at Furnes while 
Dauphin, 90; drives tap- 
estry weavers from Arras, 
278; implacable foe of 
Charles the Bold, 286; fo- 
ments insurrection at Liege, 
287-288; stirs up German 
resistance to Charles, 289; 
causes downfall of Charles, 
293; 294; 334; '344. 

Louis XIII, King of France, 
387. 

Louis XIV, captures Tournai, 
250; 265; removes tapes- 
tries from Audenaerde, 
376; portrait of, 376; 387; 
bombards Audenaerde, 391. 



Louis XV, King of France, at 
Battle of Fontenoy, 251- 
255; Joyous Entry at Ant- 
werp, 458. 

Louis XVIII, King of France, 
at Ghent, 358-359. 

Louise of Savoy, 338. 

Louvain, 219; Hotel de Ville, 
228; Guild of St. Luke or- 
ganised, 230; work of Van 
der Weyden at, 271; Die- 
rick Bouts at, 307-3018; 
310; "renowned for its 
scholars," 321; 371; 395; 
birth-place of Quentin 
Matsys, 401; 403. 

Lyon, Jean, Dean of Boat- 
men's Guild, 188. 

Lys, river, 146; superior for 
retting flax, 147; 158; 164; 
169; 204; 206. 

M 

Mabuse, see Jan Gossaert. 

Mace, Robert, teaches art of 
printing to Christopher 
Plantin, 423. 

Ma'ele, Chateau of, near 
Bruges, 303. 

Mahaut, Countess of Flan- 
ders, 122. 

Malfait of Brussels, 124. 

Malines, lace makers at, 5; 
centre of Flemish architec- 
ture, art and learning, 12; 
"Ville d'Art," 268; extorts 
privileges from Charles the 
Bold, 287; terrible destruc- 



506 



Index 



tion in the Great War, 311; 
situation and importance, 
312; early history, 312- 
315; Cloth Hall and mu- 
seum, 317; 318; Cathedral 
of St. Rombaut, 318-323; 
chimes, 323-325 ; interior 
of Cathedral, 325-327; "re- 
nowned for its fools," 321; 
Notre Dame au dela de la 
Dyle, 327-328; Notre Dame 
d'Hanswyck, 328 - 329; 
church of St. Jean, 330- 
331; Hotel de Ville, 332; 
Vieux Palais, 332-333 ; 
some fine old houses, 333; 
Margaret of Austria, early 
life, 333-336; her court at 
Malines, 336; 342; death, 
342-343 ; "monuments" 

classified, 363; 439; 442; 
Cathedral sadly injured, 
482. 

Mammelokker, bas relief and 
legend of, 198. 

Manson, Collard, printer at 
Bruges, 228; 435. 

Margaret of Austria, Regent 
of the Netherlands, 61-62; 
childhood and early life, 
333-336; Palace at Ma- 
lines, 336; Regent of the 
Netherlands, 337; negotia- 
tiates the "Ladies' Peace," 
338-339 ; brilliant court, 
339; taste for art and lit- 
erature, 340-342; untimely 
death, 342-343; 345; 349. 

Margaret, Countess of Flan- 



ders, 122; 132; 135; 130; 
153. 

Margaret, daughter of Louis 
of Maele, 183; 205-206; 
218. 

Margaret of Parma, portrait 
at Audenaerde, 376; birth 
and marriages, 377-378; 
Regent of the Netherlands, 
379; popularity, 379-380; 
suppresses outbreak of the 
Iconoclasts, 380-381 ; su- 
perseded by Duke of Alva, 
3181; 413; 419; 425. 

Margaret of York, betrothal 
to Charles the Bold at 
Damme, 75-77; resides at 
Malines, 333; 336. 

Maria Theresa, Empress of 
Austria, 458. 

Marie of Burgundy, tomb at 
Bruges, 51-53; Statue, 62; 
293; marries Maximilian, 
294; children of, 333; 344; 
345; 349. 

Marie of Champagne, Coun- 
tess of Flanders, 133; dedi- 
cates Cloth Hall at Ypres, 
134; death in Syria, 134; 
162. 

Marie, Queen of Hungary, 
339; Regent of the Nether- 
lands, 342-343 ; insurrec- 
tion at Ghent during reign 
of, 349-350; 354. 

Marlborough, Duke of, cap- 
tures Tournai, 250; wins 
Battle of Audenaerde, 391; 
recalled in peasant nursery 



Index 



507 



song, 391-392; takes Ant- 
werp after Battle of Ra- 
millies, 458. 

Marot, Clement, 428. 

Marvis Towers at Tournai, 
265. 

Masse, 341. 

Matsys, Quentin, life and 
principal works, 401-403. 

Matthew, Duke of Lorraine, 
122. 

Maurice, Count of jSTassau, 
wins Battle of the Dunes, 
96-98; 465; captures Sluys, 
468. 

Maximilian, Emperor, 51; 
statue of, 62; conflict with 
Bruges, 71; marriage to 
Marie of Burgundy, 294; 
333; Regent of Flanders, 
334; fondness for daughter, 
Margaret of Austria, 337; 
death, 338; 345; 347; 411. 

Maximilian, Emperor of Mex- 
ico, 369. 

Memling, Hans, at Bruges, 
295-296; works of, in Hos- 
pital of St. Jean, 296-298; 
other notable paintings, 
298-299; 307; in collection 
of Margaret , of Austria, 
341. 

Mercator, 431. 

Merghelynck Museum at 
Ypres, 139-140; 304. 

Meunier, Constantin, statue 
of pecheiir des crevettes, 
93; painting at Courtrai, 
160. 



Michelle, first wife of Philip 
the Good, 183; death of, 
233-234. 

Middleburg, paintings by Van 
der Weyden at, 309. 

Minnewater, 33; view of 
Notre Dame from, 50; for- 
merly chief harbour of 
Bruges, 71-72. 

Molinet, Jean, 341. 

Mons, capital of Hainaut, 
130; Flemish name for, 
150; 219; Hotel de Ville, 
228; 243; 252. 

Montalembert, quoted, 388. 

Montanus, Arias, supervises 
Biblia Regia, 426; opinion 
of Christopher Plantin, 
427; 431. 

Morat, Battle of, 291. 

Moretus, Balthazar I, 432. 

Moretus, Edouard, sells Plan- 
tin-Moretus museum to city 
of Antwerp, 432. 

Moretus, Jean I, marries 
Martina, daughter of Chris- 
topher Plantin, 429; 431; 
432; tomb in the Cathedral, 
441; employs Rubens, 443; 
friend of Rubens, 448. 

Moretus, Jean II, 431-432. 

Montereau, murder of John 
the Fearless at, 220. 

Morte d'Ypres, la (the Death 
of Ypres), 117; 122; 123; 
144. 

Motley, cited, 413. 

N 
Nancy, siege of, 291; death 



508 



Index 



of Charles the Bold before, 
292; 295; 333. 

Namur, 312. 

Napoleon, saves Chapel of the 
Holy Blood, 56; 94; 282; 
330; 358; 358-359; re- 
moves tapestries from Au- 
denaerde, 376; at Antwerp, 
460. 

Nauwelaerts, official bell 
ringer of Bruges, 66. 

Neerwinden, Battle of, 459. 

Nicholas V, Pope, 340. 

Nicholas de Verdun, 277. 

Nieuport, at time of the Cru- 
sades, 13; receives charter 
from Philip of Alsace, 55; 
some famous sieges of, 95; 
Battle of the Dunes, 96- 
98; Chambers of Phetoric, 
99 ; Tower of tlie Templars, 
Cloth Hall and church of 
Notre Dame, 99-101; the 
Yser River, locks and ca- 
nals, 103-104; 465; 473. 

Norsemen, anarchy resulting 
from invasions of, 36 ; cap- 
ture Tournai, 248; 256; 
259; burn church at Au- 
denaerde, 383. 

Notre Dame, Cathedral of, at 
Antwerp, 20; 228; well 
cover made by Quentin 
Matsys, 401 ; description of, 
440-442. 

Notre Dame de Pamela, 
church of, at Audenaerde, 
387-389. 

Notre Dame, church of, at 



Bruges, 50-53 ; remains of 
Charles the Bold placed in, 
292; 303; 306. 

Notre Dame, church of, at 
Courtrai, 162-163. 

Notre Dame au dela de la 
Dyle, church of, at Ma- 
lines, 316; description, 
327-328. 

Notre Dame d'Hanswyck, 
church of, at Malines, 316; 
description, 328-329. 

Notre Dame, Cathedral of, at 
Tournai, 245 ; description, 
255-262. 



O 



Order of the Golden Fleece, 
58; 172; 175; established 
by Philip the Good, 221- 
222; fetes at Lille, 227; 
Tournai tapestries ordered 
for, 279; chapter at Ma- 
lines, 334; at Antwerp, 
412; portrait of Charles V 
wearing insignia of, 376. 

Ostende, part of the Franc of 
Bruges, 59; 102; canal 
from Nieuport to, 103; 
324 ; 359 ; on main tourist 
routes, 464; great siege of 
1601-1603, 465-469; re- 
nown as a watering place 
since 1830, 470; description 
of the Digue, the Esplanade 
and the beach, 471-472; 
summer prices at, 472- 
473; the Kursaal, 473- 



Index 



509 



477; the Estacade, 477- 
478; last glimpses of, 478- 
479. 

Orleans, Duke of, 220 ; 233. 

Ortelius, 431. 

Oudenaarde, Jan van, 72. 



Pape, Simon de, early painter 
of Audenaerde, 384; 389. 

Parma, Duke of, captures 
"Y^res, 144; besieges Tour- 
nai, 249; son of Margaret 
of Parma, 378; Regent of 
the Netherlands, 379; 414; 
siege of Antwerp, 419-422; 
447; siege of Ostende, 465. 

Pauwels, Ferdinand, 121-122. 

Pavia, Battle of, 62. 

Pembroke, Duke of, 70. , 

Peronne, 138; Louis XI visits 
Charles the Bold at, 288; 
293. 

Peterinck, Frangois, maker of 
fine porcelains at Tournai, 
280. 

Philibert II, Duke of Savoy, 
335. 

Philip of Alsace, Count of 
Flanders, grants charters 
to many Flemish cities, 
55; 59; grants the Keur- 
hrief, 59-61; 87; 129; 
builds Spuytorre at Cour- 
trai, 164; erects Chateau 
des Comtes at Ghent, 171; 
173; 189. 

Philip Augustus, King of 



France, 135-136; 138; 153; 
Treaty of Arras, 189; an- 
nexes Tournai, 248; paint- 
ing of, at Tournai, 274. 

Philip the Bold, Duke of Bur- 
gundy, 90; 124; removes 
clock at Courtrai, 148; re- 
builds Spuytorre at Cour- 
trai, 164; marries Mar- 
garet of Maele, 183; sig- 
nificance of this event, 
205-206 ; acknowledged as 
Count of Flanders, 218; 
arranges the marriages of 
Cambrai, 218-219; death, 
220; court painter of, 230- 
231; 397. 

Philippe de Champaigne, 376. 

Philip the Fair (Philippe le 
Bel), King of France, 153; 
» annexes Flanders, 154; at 
Bruges, 155; rage over the 
Matin de Bruges, 156; de- 
feated at Courtrai, 157- 
160; sheriffs of, besieged at 
Ghent, 177. 

Philip the Good, Duke of Bur- 
gundy, 4; 58; 90; 175; 
176; becomes Count of 
Flanders, Hainaut and Hol- 
land, and Duke of Brabant, 
220-221; foimds Order of 
the Golden Fleece, 221- 
222; siege of Calais, 222- 
223; repulsed at Bruges 
(Bruges vespers), 223-224; 
humbles Bruges, 224-225 ; 
crushes Ghent at Gavre, 
225-227; holds fgtes at 



510 



Index 



Lille, 227; divergent esti- 
mates of character, 228- 
229; 231; visits studio of 
Jean Van Eyck, 235-236; 
orders portrait of Isabel of 
Portugal, 238; orders tap- 
estries at Tournai, 279; 
287; 305; 340; 344; grants 
liberal charter to Antwerp, 
398. 

Philip the Handsome, Duke 
of Burgundy, 51; 62; 91; 
education, 333 ; premature 
death, 334; 346. 

Philip 11, King of Spain, 91; 
236-237; 249; 292-293; 
unwise policy provokes re- 
volt, 379-380; sends Duke 
of Alva to punish icon- 
oclasts, 381; 412; 413-415; 
rejoices at fall of Antwerp, 
422; 424; aids Plantin to 
publish Biblia Regia, 426; 
427; 432; 447; 465. 

Philip of Valois, King of 
France, 201-202. 

Pierre de Beckfere, 52. 

Pius 11, 378. 

Pizarro, 346. 

Plantin, Christopher, early 
life, 423-424 ; establishes 
printing house at Antwerp, 
425; issues the Biblia Re- 
gia, 426-427; extent of 
business, 427-428 ; moves 
to Friday Market, 428- 
429; death, 429-430; ex- 
tent of achievements, 431; 
tomb in the Cathedral, 441. 



Plantin-Moretus Museum, at 
Antwerp, 423 ; 432-437 ; 
portraits by Rubens, 444; 
sketches by Rubens, 445. 

Pourbus, Pieter, 301. 

Prevost, Jean, 301. 

Procession of the Holy Blood 
at Bruges, 56; Procession 
at Furnes, 87-89; Peys- 
processie at Malines, 315. 

Pyn, Li6vin, execution of, 
349-350; 351; 352. 

Q 

Quellin, Erasmus, "The Ado- 
ration of the Shepherds" 
at Malines, 327; 433; 
foimds family of sculptors 
and painters, 452-543. 

"Quentin Durward" by Sir 
Walter Scott, cited, 288. 

R 

Rabot at Ghent, 345-346. 

Raeske, Richard de, 37. 

Ramillies, Battle of, 458. 

Raphelingen, Francis, chief 
proof-reader of Christopher 
Plantin, 427; marries Mar- 
garet, eldest daughter, 429. 

Renacle de Florennes, 341. 

Reparation inmsihle, 215- 
216. 

Requesens, Regent of the 
Netherlands, 415. 

Richard, Duke of Gloucester, 
later Richard III, King of 
England, 303. 



Index 



511 



Riviere, Jeanne, wife of Chris- 
topher Plan tin, 423; aids 
husband with a linen busi- 
ness, 429. 

Robbins, Philippe, master tap- 
estry weaver of Audenaerde, 
387. 

Robert the Frisian, Count of 
Flanders, 141. 

Robert II, Count of Flanders, 
87-88. 

Robinson, Wilfrid, "Antwerp, 
an Historical Sketch," 
quoted, 397. 

Rockox, burgomaster of Ant- 
werp, 448. 

Roda, Jerome, 415. 

Roland, the great bell at 
Ghent, 196-197; inscrip- 
tion on, 196; taken down 
by Charles V, 354. 

Rooses, Max, Director of 
Plantin-Moretus Museum, 
quoted, 239-240; 298; de- 
scription of Plantin Mu- 
seum, cited, 433. 

Rosbecque, Battle of, 162; 
163; 207. 

Roya, at Bruges, 26; 27; 52. 

Rubens, Peter Paul, "St. Ba- 
von withdrawing from the 
World" at Ghent, 241; 
"Christ on the Cross" at 
Malines, 317; "Miraculous 
Draught of Fishes" at Ma- 
lines, 327-328; "Adoration 
of the Magi" at Malines, 
330; 386; 433; rank among 
the masters, 438; two mas- 



terpieces in Cathedral at 
Antwerp, 339-440; "Resur- 
rection" in the Cathedral, 
441; at height of fame, 
442-444; enormous produc- 
tivity, 444-445 ; death, 445 ; 
Prof. Wauters' estimate of, 
446-447; patronised by the 
"Archdukes," 448 ; diplo- 
matic missions, 448; let- 
ters, 449; 455; 456. 
Rudolph II, Emperor of Aus- 
tria, 405. 



St. Amand, early missionary, 
181. 

St. Basil, crypt of, at Bruges, 
27-28; restoration, 57; 171. 

St. Bavon, Abbey of, at Ghent, 
181-185; 189; destruction 
of, by Charles V, 353. 

St. Bavon, Cathedral of, at 
Ghent, 172; crypt, 1818- 
189; altar-piece by the Van 
Eycks, 234-238; other 
works of art in, 240-241 ; 
355; 360. 

St. Brice, church of, at Tour- 
nai, 263-264. 

St. Donatian, church of, at 
Bruges, 35; scene of mur- 
der of Charles the Good, 
38; besieged by foes of the 
Erembalds, 39-41 ; Erem- 
balds flung from tower, 41; 
destroyed in French Revo- 



512 



Index 



lution, 42; relics and ap- 
proximate site, 42-43; 292. 

St. Eleuthereus, statue of, on 
portal of Cathedral, 260; 
Chasse of, 276-277 ; life of, 
depicted on tapestry in Ca- 
thedral, 279. 

St. George, church of, at 
Nancy, 292. 

St. Ghislain, 252. 

Ste. Gudule, Cathedral of, at 
Brussels, 340. 

St. Jacques, church of, at 
Antwerp, 445-446. 

St. Jean, Hospital of, at 
Bruges, legend of nursing 
Memling, 295-296; Shrine 
of St. Ursula, 296-298; 
other works by ]\Iemling at, 
298; description of, 299; 
301. 

St. Jean, church of, at Ghent, 
name changed to St. Bavon 
in 1540, 188. 

St. Jean, church of, at Ma- 
lines, 330-331. 

St. Luke, Guild of, first or- 
ganised in Flemish towns, 
229-230; admits brothers 
Van Eyck at Bruges, 234; 
at Tournai, 270-271; at 
Ghent admits Van der 
Meire, 363; admits Frans 
Floris at Antwerp, 403; 
admits Christopher Plantin 
at Antwerp, 423 ; elects Ru- 
bens President, 445. 

St. Martin, church of, at 
Courtrai, 161-162. 



St. Martin, church of, at 
Ypres, 125-126. 

St. Mary, church of, at Ant- 
werp, 412; becomes Ca- 
thedral of Notre Dame in 
1560, 440. 

St. Michel, church of, at 
Ghent, 181. 

St. Nicholas, church of, at 
Dixmude, 84-85; 482. 

St. Nicholas, church of, at 
Ghent, 186-188. 

St. Omer, seized by Philip 
Augustus, 135. 

St. Peter, monastery of, at 
Ghent, 181-182; 189. 

St. Peter, church of, at Lou- 
vain, 307-308. 

St. Piat, martyrdom at Tour- 
nai, 245; statue of, on por- 
tal of Cathedral, 260; life 
of, depicted on tapestry in 
Cathedral, 279. 

St. Rombaut, Cathedral of, 
at Malines, 312; 313; first 
view of, 317; the tower and 
its builders, 318-323; the 
chimes, 323-325 ; interior 
and art treasures, 325-327 ; 
328; tower completed, 340. 

St. Sauveur, Cathedral of, at 
Bruges, 47-50; 305-307; 
362. 

Ste. Ursula, Shrine of, 296- 
298. 

Ste. Walburge, church of, at 
Audenaerde, 368; 369; 382; 
description of, 383-385; 
389. 



Index 



513 



Ste. Walburge, church of, at 
Furnes, 88 and 92. 

Saventhem, 449-451. 

Savoy, Diichess of, see Mar- 
garet of Austria. 

Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Leopold, 
Prince of, elected King of 
the Belgians, 461. 

Saxe, Maurice, victor at Fon- 
tenoy, 251-255. 

Scheldt, estuary, 17; "the 
greyest of grey rivers," 18; 
history of navigation on, 
18-19; view from, 19-20; 
river traffic on, 20; Ant- 
werp from, 21; monument 
on Place Marnix, 19; 169; 
at Tournai, 266; 300; 
snakes in, 382; at Aude- 
naerde, 387; 389; legend of 
Brabo, 393-394; displaces 
the Zwyn as highway of 
commerce, 394-395 ; fight 
for mastery of, 399-400; 
deepens as commerce grows, 
400; 401; 414; closed dur- 
ing reign of the Archdukes, 
447; opened to navigation 
in 1795, 459; docks erected 
by Napoleon, 460; free un- 
der the Dutch, 460; freed 
permanently by Leopold I 
in 1863, 461; growth of 
commerce since, 462. 

Scott, Sir Walter, "Quentin 
Durward," cited, 288; 304. 

Seghers, Daniel, 51. 

Shelley, "Ode to the Sky- 
lark, quoted, 167-168. 



Sigebert, brother of Chilperic, 
248; 281. 

Sluys, part of the Franc of 
Bruges, 59; landing place 
of Margaret of York in 
1468, 76; Battle of, 201; 
captured by Maurice of 
Nassau, 468. 

Snellinck, Jean, "Creation of 
Eve" at Audenaerde, 388- 
389. 

Snyders, Francis, animal pic- 
tures of, 453. 

Spanish Fury, the, 415-418. 

Spierinckx, Peter, 386. 

Spinola, Ambrose, Marquis 
of, captures Ostende, 468- 
469. 

Stallaert, "Death of Dido," 
274. 

Steen, 396; 398; description 
of, 399. 

Strada, the historian, cited, 
378. 

Swerts, Jean, mural paint- 
ings at Ypres, 125; at 
Courtrai, 152. 



T 



Taillebert, Urban, 84. 

Tancmar, Lord of Straten, 37. 

Tani, Jacopo, 298. 

Tapestry, 5; workers organ- 
ised into a guild, 230; in 
church of St. Brice at Tour- 
nai, 264; weaving at Tour- 
nai, 278-280; 376; at Au- 
denaerde, 384-390. 



514 



Index 



Templars, Tower of, at Nieu- 
port, 95; 99; House of, at 
Ypres, 140-141. 

Teniers, David, 7; 386; mas- 
ter of scenes of homely 
Flemish life, 453-454; 455; 
456. 

Tournai, tapestries, 5; forest 
of, 134; besieged by Ed- 
ward III, 202; Guild of St. 
Luke organised, 229; tapes- 
try workers organised, 230; 
oldest city in Belgium, 242 ; 
turris Nerviorum of Caesar, 
245; capital of Merovin- 
gian Kings, 245-248; many 
sieges, 248-250; Battle of 
Fontenoy, 250^255; Belfry, 
262-263 ; Roman houses 
and church of St. Brice, 
263-264; relics of King 
'Childeric, 264-265; Marvis 
Towers, Pont des Troxis, 
and tower of Henry VIII, 
265-267; Yille d'Art, 268- 
269 and 281-282; Robert 
Carapin, Jacques Daret and 
Van der Weyden, 269-272; 
Cloth Hall and Museum of 
Fine Arts, 272-275; later 
artists, 274-275; sculptors 
at, 275-276; gold and sil- 
versmiths at, 276-277; cop- 
persmiths at, 277-278; tap- 
estry weavers, 278-280; 
porcelains of, 280-281; 
manufactures of stained 
glass, 281-282; manufac- 
ture of fine carpets, 282; 



312; "monuments" classi- 
fied, 363; 377; tapestry 
weaving at, 383. 

Trajan, "the Just Emperor," 
painting by Van der Wey- 
den, 271. 

Triest, Bishop, tomb in Ca- 
thedral of St, Bavon at 
Ghent, 241 ; encourages hor- 
ticulture at Ghent, 355-356 ; 
358. 

Turenne, defeated by Cond6 
near Nieuport, 95. 

Turin, Exposition of, Tournai 
carpet shown at, 282. 

Turnhout, lace makers at, 5 ; 
fairy hill near, 409. 

U 

Urbin, Duke of, 378. 
V 

Valckx, Pierre, sculptor, 381. 

Valenciennes, 134; 137; lace 
made at Ypres, 141; 219; 
tapestry workers organised, 
230; 351. 

Van Artevelde, Jacques (or 
Jacob), besieges Louis of 
Maele at Ghent, 178; rise 
to power, 199-200; alliance 
with Edward III, 201; Bat- 
tle of Sluys, 201-202; as- 
sassination, 202-204; 248- 
249; 397. 

Van Artevelde, Philip, brief 
career, 206-207; big cannon 



Index 



515 



of, 208; at siege of Auden- 
aerde, 391. 

Van Bredael, Alexander, 
386. 

Van den Broeck, 431. 

Van Dyck, Anthony, "The 
Raising of the Cross" at 
Courtrai, 162-1635 "The 
Crucifixion" at Malines, 
327; 433; pupil of Rubens, 
4991; "Saint Martin divid- 
ing Cloak among the Beg- 
gars," 499-451; at Ant- 
werp, 451; court painter of 
Charles I, 451; chief works, 
451-452; 456. 

Van Eyck, Hubert, tombstone 
at Abbey of St. Bavon, 184; 
discovery of art of painting 
with oils, 231-233; in serv- 
ice of Philip the Good, 233- 
234; plans and begins "The 
Adoration of the Lamb," 
234-235; death, 234; monu- 
ment, 241; 269; 270; 295; 
360. 

Van Eyck, Jean, colours stat- 
ues for Hotel de Ville at 
Bruges, 58; 59; discovery 
of art of painting with oils, 
231-233; enters service of 
Philip the Good, 233-234; 
completes "The Adoration 
of the Lamb," 235; later 
paintings, 238-239; death, 
240; monument, 241; 269; 
270; 295; 301; "La Belle 
Portugalai-se" at Malines, 
341-342; 360. 



Van der Gheynst, Jehanne 

(or Jeanne), 377-378. 
Van der Goes, Hugo, 273; ^ 

301 ; 307 ; life and principal 

works, 360-362. 
Van Maerlant, Jacob, Flemish 

j)oet, 59; statue at Damme, 

73-74. 
Van der Meire, Gerard, 

painter of Ghent, 363. 
Van Meuwenhove, Martin, 

painting of, by Memling, 

298. 
Van Noort, Adam, teacher of 

Rubens, 441. 
Van Orley, Bernard, 339; 341. 
Van der Paele, George, paint- 
ing of, by Jean Van Eyck, 

239-240. 
Van P6de, Henri, 371. 
Van der Schelden, Paul, sculp- 
tor, 373; wooden doorway 

at Audenaerde, 375. 
Van Severdonck, 274. 
Van de Walle, burgomaster of 

Bruges, 224; 225. 
Van der Voort, Michel, 

sculptor of Antwerp, 326. 
Van der Weyden, Rogier 
(Roger de la Pasture), 

270-272; 273; influence of 

sculpture on^ 275; 280; 

300; 307; 308; 309; 

341. 
Vauban, military engineer, 

constructs walls of Ypres, 

142; fortifies Toumai, 250; 

312. 
Verbanck, Georges, 24 L 



516 



Index 



Verbruggen, P. H., sculptor, 

241; 453. 
Vere, Sir Francis, English 

commander at Ostende, 

4G7-468. 
Verhaegen, Theodore, sculp- 
tor, 329; fine carvings at 

Malines, 331. 
Verlat, Charles, 418-419. 
Vervoort, Michel, 442. 
Viv6s, Louis, 341. 
Voisin, Belgian historian, 160. 
Vos, Martin de, many works 

of, at Antwerp, 404; 431. 
Vriendt, Albrecht and Julian 

de, frescoes at Bruges, 58- 

59; at Furnes, 91. 
Vriendt, Cornelius de, 4oG- 

457. 
Vos, Cornelius de, portraits 

of, 453. 
Vydts, Jodocus, 234. 

W 

Waghenakere, Dominique de, 
architect, 348. 

Walloon provinces, 13; 24. 

Walter of Straten, 37. 

Waterloo, Battle of, 94; 158; 
250; 359; 460. 

Wauters, Prof. A. J., "History 
of Flemish Painting," cited, 
229; attributes portrait of 
Charles the Bold to Van 
der Goes, 362; on Peter 
Breughel the Elder, quoted, 
404-405; eulogy of Rubens, 
quoted, 446-447. 



Wauters, Emile, painting of 
the madness of Hugo Van 
der Goes, 361. 

Weale, James, cited, 299. 

Westende, 473. 

White Hoods, 188; destroy 
castles of Liliaert nobles, 
200. 

William of Dampierre, Count 
of Flanders, 153, 

William I, King of Holland, 
460. 

William of Juliers, Provost 
of Maestricht, 154; 193. 

William the Silent, Prince of 
Orange, 320; 328; 412; 
419; death, 419; plans for 
defence of Antwerp disre- 
garded, 420-421. 

Winders, sculjitor, 19. 

Witte, Gaspar de, 386. 

Wolsey, Cardinal, 249, 

Wordsworth, quoted, 168. 

Wynandael, 53; 132. 



Yperl§e, tributary to the 
Yser, 104. 

Ypres, at the time of the Cru- 
sades, 13; fortified by Bald- 
win II, 34; execution of 
Provost of St. Donatian at, 
40-41 ; receives charter 
from Philip of Alsace, 55; 
stubborn defence in the 
Great War, 116-118; Halle 
aux Draps, or Cloth Hall, 



Index 



517 



118-125; church of St. 
Martin, 125-126; Grande 
Place, 126-129; Musee Mer- 
ghelynck, 139-140; rue de 
Lille and ancient city walls, 
141-143; causes of decline, 
143—145 ; language spoken 
at, 159; guildsmen of, at 
Battle of the Spurs, 157; 
190; 192; 198-199; influ- 
ence of Jacques Van Arte- 
velde in, 200; 202; Mel- 
chior Broederlam, early 
painter of, 230-231; 304; 
Hotel de Ville destroyed by 
the Germans, 482. 



Ysenbrant, Adriaen, early 
painter of Bruges, 301. 

Yser Canal, limit of the Ger- 
man advance, 94; the locks, 
the river and the three 
canals, 103-104. 



Zee-Brugge, from the sea, 16. 

Zeghers, Gerard, religious 
pictures of, 453. 

Zwyn, ancient channel to 
Bruges, 16-17; 59; silting 
up of, 70-71; replaced by 
the Scheldt, as channel of 
commerce, 394-395; 398. 



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